Lampedusa 2025 - the event
Active Memories
In 2025, twelve years after the shipwreck of October 3rd, 2013, the Day of Remembrance and Welcome returns to Lampedusa with a deep, collective reflection on the concept of legacy — not only as a symbolic inheritance, but as a right to identity, memory, and justice.
The Mediterranean, turned into an invisible cemetery, is where stories, relationships, family ties, and futures are abruptly broken. In this context, recognizing those who died means restoring voice, dignity, and truth. Identifying the bodies of missing migrants is not just a technical act: it is a political and ethical choice, an act of justice, a form of resistance against oblivion.
Roundtables: Memory, Rights, and Solidarity
During the Days of Remembrance, public roundtables and debates will be held to address the most pressing issues related to migration in the Mediterranean. These gatherings serve as open spaces for dialogue among experts, institutions, activists, frontline workers, families of the victims, and civil society.
Voices of Witnesses: Identity, Truth, Justice
One of the most powerful moments of the Day is the encounter between students and direct witnesses of the shipwrecks: survivors, relatives of the missing, and young people who have crossed the sea. Alongside them will be families who have never received confirmation about the fate of their loved ones. During the Day, the team from LABANOF – Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology will also be present to conduct interviews and collect DNA samples from relatives, in order to initiate or complete identification processes for the victims.
An Educational Alliance: NGOs, Associations, and UN Agencies
The Day is also a major educational platform. Numerous NGOs, associations, and United Nations agencies participate by offering workshops, training sessions, and educational activities for hundreds of students. These moments aim to portray the Mediterranean as a space of rights, hope, and transformation.
April 18, 2015 – Ten Years Later: The Shipwreck That Changed History
April 18, 2015, is a date etched into the collective conscience of the Mediterranean. On that tragic night, a large boat carrying over 1,000 migrants departed from Libya and capsized in the Sicilian Channel during a rescue operation. The toll was devastating: more than 800 people died, most of them trapped inside the sunken hull. It was the deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean in contemporary history.
Italy responded to this tragedy with an unprecedented decision: to recover the wreck from the seabed—375 meters deep—and attempt to identify the victims. This gave birth to the Melilli Mission, an extraordinary operation that brought together the armed forces, firefighters, civilian divers, forensic experts from LABANOF, and the Special Commissioner for Missing Persons.
The vessel was transported to the military base in Melilli, near Augusta, where, for months, people worked with dedication and respect to restore names, stories, and graves to the lost. It was a gesture of humanity and dignity that showed how, when political will meets scientific expertise, even the impossible becomes possible.
Ten years later, remembering the shipwreck of April 18 is not only a duty of memory—it is an urgent call to action: so that the Melilli Mission does not remain an isolated case, but becomes a model for Europe. Because every life deserves to be identified. Because no one should die without a name.
Dear friends, Each year, returning to Lampedusa feels like returning to a knot in our collective memory—a place that is not just geography, but conscience. Here, all too often, the routes of despair and silence have crossed. And it is from here that we want, once again, to raise our voices. From 29 September to 3 October 2025, we will mark the 12th Day of Remembrance and Welcome—and it will not be a simple commemoration. It will be a living, collective space where memory becomes action, where stories meet and transform into awareness. This year, more than ever, we feel the need to look each other in the eyes again, to build real connections. Because only through encounter can we build a we that does not exclude. Only by bringing generations, experiences, and roots into dialogue can we learn to preserve the past and care for the future. We will do this together—with students and teachers, with the families of shipwreck victims, with witnesses, rescuers, and all those who choose, every day, to stand on the side of human dignity. We will do it with words, with actions, and with silences filled with meaning. Because memory is not a solitary act—it is a bridge. It is never easy to reopen wounds year after year. But it is necessary. Because if we are able to tell these stories today, it is thanks to those who, yesterday, chose not to forget. And because we want a tomorrow in which no one is forced to die in silence. This edition carries an even deeper meaning: it marks the tenth anniversary of the 18 April 2015 shipwreck, one of the deadliest tragedies to ever occur in the Mediterranean, in which nearly a thousand lives were lost. Remembering that day is a powerful reaffirmation of our commitment to ensure that no lost life is ever forgotten. I warmly invite you to walk this path with us. To be there. To bring your questions, your ideas, your emotions. Because there can be no welcome and inclusion without listening—and no future without memory. With gratitude and hope,