Lampedusa, 3 October 2013: The Shipwreck of Truth

This investigation recounts and analyses the facts of 3 October 2013, identifying the political and economic consequences connected to the distorted use of the facts used in dominant propaganda. The document was written beginning with witness accounts of the rescuers and some of the survivors, many of which have been ignored or given very little consideration by the official investigations.

This research and analysis into the massacre of 3 October 2013 off Lampedusa came began as a project expanding on Antonio Maggiore’s video inquiry, “Lampedusa 3 October 2013: Days of the Tragedy”, produced by Libera Espressione.

The first version of this document was published in 2015. Today we are issuing a revised and corrected version in the light of various developments connected to the events of the October 3rd massacre.

Five years after those events, we believe that it is only correct to maintain attention on some of the points such as the lack of rescuing and the political and economic interests that stands at the foundation of this shipwreck and many others,

We maintain that the problem of contemporary migrations in the Mediterranean zone derives from the laws that the EU has imposed on member states in order to adhere to the internal European market and the Schengen zone.

People pay up to €10,000 and put many years into their journey before arriving in Europe. Often these are people fleeing from war, other times from exploitation in their own countries, and at other times simply in search of work. If the money spent on militarising the borders (‘Security’) and on detention centres for migrants (‘Reception’) were instead investaed in regularising these journeys and in labour politices, we would no doubt see thousands of people dieing in this way.

From our own point of view, the problem remains the current economi system that has made profit the goal of every kind of activity. Neoliberal capitalism – of which the EU is a political expression – takes thousands of victims every day, people who do not find space on the TV news or in state representations, people who do not have a use to any kind of politics: they are simply victims. No one talks about them, no one even says their names.

One of the most abhorent aspects of the October 3rd is precisely this: that the victims are continually invoked as a tool to justify the politices of those who are responsable for their deaths.

In memory of the victims of capitalist imperialism

Collettivo Askavusa

Lampedusa 1 October 2018.

Project “OpenEurope” – Oxfam Italia, Diaconia Valdese, Borderline Sicilia Onlus

Translation by Richard Braude