She wept without ceasing. Even with her eyes closed and her hands raised to the sky, praying in a whisper as workers buried her husband and little daughter in the bare earth, Ubah could not stop her tears. The little girl who died, Wacays, was born in Somalia and would have turned one year old on September 8. “Her father will hold her on his lap forever,” the woman said.
The two coffins were buried together. The child’s small casket was placed almost crosswise on top of her father’s, as if the parent were holding her on his knees. The father and daughter died last Wednesday in the shipwreck of two boats south of Lampedusa. Their funerals, along with that of another migrant, were held Thursday at the cemetery of Canicattì with Islamic rites.
The 25-year-old Somali woman, who was rescued at sea by the coast guard, wanted to view the bodies for a final photographic identification after the one that took place at the Lampedusa hotspot in the hours following the tragedy. Devoid of strength and supported at various points by members of the association Memoria Mediterranea, the young mother did nothing but caress the white coffin of her child and the stuffed animal, a kitten, that someone had placed on top.
“From the earth, to the earth,” said Arbache Azeddine, president of the Islamic association Oltre Mare of Agrigento. “I told the mother that one must have patience, resilience, and believe in destiny. To have faith, one must believe in destiny, and their destiny was to die at sea. Seeing children die is a failure. Nothing but a failure.”
“It is not easy to accept these losses. And to see this white coffin, so small, it breaks your heart,” said the Mayor of Canicattì, Vincenzo Corbo. “They come looking for a little peace, for work, but they find death.”
“We have supported dozens of families in the procedures to search for and identify their loved ones deceased or missing in the August 13 massacre,” said a representative from Memoria Mediterranea. “Like Ubah, all the families ask for is that a dignified burial according to their religious belief is ensured and that they are guaranteed the chance to visit them.”