The rights of migrants to the identification of their dead: an attempt at an identification strategy from Italy

Abstract

Europe is turning a blind eye on a humanitarian disaster unfolding at its doorsteps, with thousands of migrants dying unidentified in Mediterranean waters. Since 2014, Italy has been struggling in an almost indifferent international scenario to identify its dead migrants. Despite the lack of sufficient resources, of the difficulties in collecting post mortem data from the disseminated bodies, and of the problems of contacting and collecting ante mortem information from relatives, it has been proven, with a series of pilot studies, that not only can these bodies be identified but that relatives are also looking for their loved ones and need death certificates. This article focuses on the administrative limbo and lack of regulations obliging single states to engage in appropriate procedures to maximise identification.

Keywords: Ambiguous loss; Dead migrants; Humanitarian forensic sciences; Identification; Identification strategy; Mediterranean.

Fig. 1

Functional data collection model derived from the recent Italian experience (in the box below). In light blue, the countries where AM data have been collected; in dark grey, the countries where the PM data have been collected: the red dot indicates the collector of information where the comparison occurred

Fig. 2

Ante- and post mortem data collection concerning unknown dead migrants involved in disasters/shipwrecks which occurred in Italian waters or who arrived in the domestic ports, carried out by the the UCPS Office. Each dot represents the data (anthropological and/or genetic) related to an individual, in black for the PM data and in light blue for the AM data. The dots are grouped by the court that handled the case for PM data and by disaster for AM data. In the left column of PM and AM data, the information concerning the three largest disasters (October 3, 11, 2013, and April 18, 2015)