Mr. Menghesteab Asmerom, the chairman of the Eritrean People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) sent a message to the EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, expressing deep disappointment on the failure of Italy and EU and requesting them to give “the most basic human dignity to Eritrean victims of the Lampedusa tragedy” that claimed over 360 lives on 3 October 2013.
Sent on 19 May 2014, the EPDP Chairman’s message was also copied to 28 EU member states and Lady Catherine Ashton, the High-Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
.
Eritrean bodies scattered in the boat hull and sea floor. “In one heartbreaking image a young couple had remained in a loving embrace even as they drowned”-Daily Mail caption.
Printed below is the full text of the EPDP Chairman’s message of disappointment to the EU Commission President Barroso and Italian Prime Minister Renzi:
Subject: Please Give Human Dignity to the Remains of Lampedusa Victims
Dear Excellencies,
This is an Eritrean message of despair and disappointment with the inaction of the European Union and Italy to offer the most basic human dignity to Eritrean victims of the Lampedusa tragedy of 3 October 2013. You might already have taken note of the report by the daily Italian newspaper La Repubblica of 16 May 2014 with a video clip showing some bodies of those Lampedusa victims not yet collected from the lower hulls of the sunken boat and the sea bed.
We in the Eritrean People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), an opposition organization in exile, and many of our Eritrean compatriots have received the report with a renewed shock and dismay because we trusted that the EU and Italy would accomplish what they promised to do soon after the occurrence of the tragedy last October. We find it difficult to understand the failure of Italy and the EU to collect the bodies from the sea bed and the small sunken ship. This is in addition to Italy’s inaction to give proper burial in Eritrea of the identified bodies.
Dear EU Commission President Barroso,
Eritreans very much appreciated your timely visit to Lampedusa last October to express your shock, sympathies and support to the bereaved families and to all Eritreans in general. We in EPDP were pleased to receive your solidarity message of 20 November 2013 and the 13 January 2014 message that which advised me personally that a Task Force for the Mediterranean was formed in the EU Commission “to come up with concrete proposals” on the problem. However, we are still waiting for a result out of those pledged concrete proposals. The action, we hoped would include taking out the bodies out of the sea and making sure that the identified bodies are given proper burial.
We were also elated by your 13 January message which, inter alia, promised that the EU Commission was envisaging “specific assistance to [refugees] from and within the Horn of Africa”. This was stated in line with our repeated calls to the EU to initiate a package programme for Eritrean refugees in Eastern Sudan and Northern Ethiopia partly by rechanneling development assistance funds from EU member states that have been suspended from reaching the regime in Eritrea because of its brazen human rights violations. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for action also on this promise.
Dear Prime Minister Matteo Renzi,
We still recall the compassionate and consoling national Italian reaction to the Lampedusa disaster led by President Giorgio Napolitano and the then Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta. We were reassured that Italy would do everything at its disposal to give proper burial in Eritrea of the remains of the victims. Unfortunately, the identification of dead bodies has not been done properly let along to send all of their remains to Eritrea. Worse still, and after eight months, Italy could not help in taking out the dead bodies from the October ship wreck.
Dear Sirs,
I am writing not a protest letter - because protesting will not be helpful - but am repeating my party’s earlier appeal to your esteemed offices to put in action EU’s and Italy’s kind pledges towards the victims, their families and the rest of the distressed Eritrean people. The least we expected was a proper burial of our dead in the shores of Italy and Europe.
Respectfully yours,
Menghesteab Asmerom, Chairman,
The Eritrean People’s Democratic Party (EPDP)
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