MELILLI, Sicily: Body No. 421, bagged in midnight blue, is heaved from a refrigerated truck onto a metal stretcher and wheeled into the tent that serves as a morgue. It joins other putrefying corpses that fill the air with a pungent scent that clings to the clothing and hair of the living.
The body is that of a young man, one of hundreds who drowned 77 nautical miles off the coast of Libya in the deadliest known migrant disaster. Eighteen months later, volunteers are trying to find out who he was.
A volunteer reaches into the body bag and pulls out the dark, slime-covered remains. Another uses a sharp, black-handled knife to cut out samples for further study. Others examine the muscles and bone structure, photograph the skull and teeth and take notes on a clipboard.
The team’s leader, University of Milan forensic pathologist Cristina Cattaneo, emerges with a slimy pair of children’s jeans reading “Manchester United.” She hoses them down carefully. The jeans, and the personal effects found in the pockets, are among the most useful of clues.
It is the first time that forensic scientists have tried to build a full accounting of victims in a migrant disaster.
It was early evening on April 18, 2015, when the distress call came. A fishing boat packed with hundreds of people was in trouble, the caller said. The Italian Coast Guard radioed a nearby freighter and told it to provide assistance.
When they saw the approaching ship, the frantic migrants rushed to one side of the deck, causing the boat to list and then capsize. The boat sank to the bottom.
Twenty-eight people made it to safety. Hundreds more were locked below deck.
A year later, the Italian Navy returned to the site and used a complicated pulley system to bring the wreck to the surface. As the boat emerged from the water, the horror of what had lain below became clear.
“Water started coming out of various openings that the boat had on the side, we also saw human remains coming out of these openings,” said Rear Adm. Paolo Pezzutti, who was in charge of the operation. “It was a spectral vision we saw coming out of the water.”
Back at port in Sicily, firefighters in protective suits, rubber gloves, goggles and helmets cut into the rusted hull with hatchets and saws.
They found bodies packed in almost unimaginably close quarters. There were five bodies for every square meter. Two hundred were locked in the engine room alone.
Meticulously, the firefighters filled 458 body bags. Many contained the remains of more than one person.
The team expects to complete the autopsies this month. Cattaneo predicts the volunteers will analyze some 700 bodies, maybe as many as 800 or 900. So far, all of the victims have been men and boys, mostly between the ages of 12 and 27.
When they are finished with their examination, the volunteers zip the bag back up and load body No. 421 into a metal container that will go inside a wooden coffin.
Using a black marker, Cattaneo carefully writes PM3900421 on the container — PM for “post mortem” and 39 for Italy’s telephone country code.
That’s the code that will mark the grave until the body is connected to a name.
The body is that of a young man, one of hundreds who drowned 77 nautical miles off the coast of Libya in the deadliest known migrant disaster. Eighteen months later, volunteers are trying to find out who he was.
A volunteer reaches into the body bag and pulls out the dark, slime-covered remains. Another uses a sharp, black-handled knife to cut out samples for further study. Others examine the muscles and bone structure, photograph the skull and teeth and take notes on a clipboard.
The team’s leader, University of Milan forensic pathologist Cristina Cattaneo, emerges with a slimy pair of children’s jeans reading “Manchester United.” She hoses them down carefully. The jeans, and the personal effects found in the pockets, are among the most useful of clues.
It is the first time that forensic scientists have tried to build a full accounting of victims in a migrant disaster.
It was early evening on April 18, 2015, when the distress call came. A fishing boat packed with hundreds of people was in trouble, the caller said. The Italian Coast Guard radioed a nearby freighter and told it to provide assistance.
When they saw the approaching ship, the frantic migrants rushed to one side of the deck, causing the boat to list and then capsize. The boat sank to the bottom.
Twenty-eight people made it to safety. Hundreds more were locked below deck.
A year later, the Italian Navy returned to the site and used a complicated pulley system to bring the wreck to the surface. As the boat emerged from the water, the horror of what had lain below became clear.
“Water started coming out of various openings that the boat had on the side, we also saw human remains coming out of these openings,” said Rear Adm. Paolo Pezzutti, who was in charge of the operation. “It was a spectral vision we saw coming out of the water.”
Back at port in Sicily, firefighters in protective suits, rubber gloves, goggles and helmets cut into the rusted hull with hatchets and saws.
They found bodies packed in almost unimaginably close quarters. There were five bodies for every square meter. Two hundred were locked in the engine room alone.
Meticulously, the firefighters filled 458 body bags. Many contained the remains of more than one person.
The team expects to complete the autopsies this month. Cattaneo predicts the volunteers will analyze some 700 bodies, maybe as many as 800 or 900. So far, all of the victims have been men and boys, mostly between the ages of 12 and 27.
When they are finished with their examination, the volunteers zip the bag back up and load body No. 421 into a metal container that will go inside a wooden coffin.
Using a black marker, Cattaneo carefully writes PM3900421 on the container — PM for “post mortem” and 39 for Italy’s telephone country code.
That’s the code that will mark the grave until the body is connected to a name.
