When a grandfather asked me: "Is that little girl on social media my missing granddaughter?", why create a database of missing migrants?

Missing. No news of them, after leaving behind their wives, mothers, fathers, children, sisters, and brothers in the countries from which they departed, desperately searching for traces of their passage and their fate. Years ago, I too was contacted by Syria to help a grandfather who had lost his entire family on a desperate sea voyage to Italy trace the person he hoped was his surviving granddaughter. Months after hearing the news of his son and his family's disappearance, presumably at sea, he saw a photo posted on social media of a little girl alone, disheveled and physically exhausted, disembarking on foot from the ship that had carried out a rescue.

Among those rescued was that little girl who looked just like the granddaughter who had left Syria with her father, mother, and brother. I was told why they had contacted me. They asked me to help that grandfather determine if the living girl was his granddaughter. I had only two photos: one of the granddaughter, undoubtedly photographed on a holiday in Syria, dressed elegantly and with a serious face; the second of the little girl alone, holding her number. Months later, with the invaluable and indispensable help of a large organization working in migration, we had to get the news to the grandfather that, sadly, the little girl still alive was not his missing granddaughter. At sea? Drowned with her family? In a different landing than her parents? Never boarded a ship? What torment will forever haunt those who have watched their loved ones depart without ever knowing if they even arrived? I made up my mind then, and I keep the two photos so as not to forget.

But who cares about the identity of those missing at sea? How many drowned bodies have a name and surname? How many will we be able to learn the identity and burial place of? How many families will we give the opportunity to mourn the loss of their loved ones? And even to be recognized as widows or orphans? In these cruel times of migrant hunts, pushbacks, and incarcerations, in these days of humanity's barbarity, the Council of Europe recently adopted a resolution urging states to use every means to shed light on the fate of the missing, to work together for less inconsistent legislation on the search for missing persons and the identification of bodies. And at the end of April, Strasbourg hosted a major parliamentary conference to "Imagine effective public policies to prevent and manage cases of missing migrants."

It is in this context that the Chief Prosecutor of Gela, Salvatore Vella, has proposed a database managed and maintained by a European agency that, in collaboration with the Judicial Police or European judicial authorities, and in consultation with diplomatic authorities and NGOs active in migrants' countries of origin, would work to search for, identify, and return the bodies of missing persons. The Italian Parliament is called upon to advance this proposal, and the invitation is that this be done regardless of political affiliation . "Human dignity must be ensured for all people, in life and in death" ( Resolution 2569/2024 ). We are all called to fulfill this duty, as Sophocles' heroine, Antigone, understood. But it is not only individual conscience, the culture of solidarity, and pietas that are at stake. It is also the values and legal culture that have nurtured Europe.

FROM

Sandra Zampa