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The Lampedusa cross is made from pieces of a boat that was wrecked on 11 October 2013 near the Italian island of Lampedusa, close to the coast of Tunisia. The overcrowded boat carrying 466 migrants from Somalia and Eritrea caught fire, capsized and sank at a time when there was no official maritime rescue service. Three hundred eleven refugees fleeing persecution and seeking refuge in Europe were drowned. Inhabitants of Lampedusa helped to save the lives of 155 others.
The island’s carpenter, Francesco Tuccio, met some of the survivors at his church and, moved by their plight, made individual crosses for each person. Unable to make a difference to their situation, the best he felt he could do was to use his skills as a carpenter to fashion each a cross from the boat’s wreckage as a reflection on their salvation from the sea and hope for the future. These crosses also reflected the fate of many migrants.