Douglas Murray Douglas Murray

The people from the sea

Most survive the terrible journey. The next steps are less certain, for them and for Europe

A migrant woman waits in Lampedusa to board a ship bound for Sicily, April 23 2015. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images 
issue 02 May 2015

 Lampedusa

The young hang about in packs or speed around town, two to a scooter. Old women group together on benches around the town square in front of the church. The men continually greet each other as though they haven’t met for years. The likelihood is small. With fewer than 6,000 inhabitants, and as close to Libya as it is to Italy, Lampedusa is the sort of place from which any ambitious young Italian would spend their life trying to escape. Yet every day hundreds and sometimes thousands of people are risking their lives to get here.

‘Please tell people we have nice beaches,’ one islander pleads. And indeed they do, but the fact is that today the island is not famous for tourists (there is only one other guest at my hotel) but for the boatloads of migrants who are trying to make their way towards this most southerly point of Europe. It is a strange fate. Over the centuries this small scrap of land has been populated, depopulated after pirate raids and repopulated again. But what has happened in recent years is new. People have fled northern Africa for years. Lampedusa’s graveyard attests to that. Buried alongside the locals are some of those who set out for the island whose journey ended in the sea. (‘Migrante non identificato. Qui riposa,’ says one of the grave-markers put down by the local government. ‘29 Settembre 2000.’)

But since the ‘Arab Spring’ the trickle of migrants has become a flood. The island buries those it can identify and commemorates those it cannot with a cross and the identity number given on arrival. ‘Where are the other bodies?’ I ask someone. ‘The sea has most’ is the reply. But despite the horrors you hear, most of those who come now — averaging a journey of 24 hours on the vessels the traffickers put out — will survive.

Illustration Image

Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

TRY 3 MONTHS FOR $5
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Start your 3-month trial today for just $5 and subscribe to more than one view

Comments

Join the debate for just £1 a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.

Already a subscriber? Log in