Infant girl dead in shipwreck buried with father in Italy

Rome: A large amount of emotion was seen at the Canicattì cemetery on the Italian island of Sicily during a funeral for a Somali infant girl and her father, who had died in an August 13 shipwreck off Lampedusa. Next to the coffins was the mother, who survived.

“Her father will keep her on his lap, always,” Ubah said, sobbing after the coffins of her infant daughter and husband were lowered into the ground. The Somali infant was named Wacays and was only 11 months old. The two died in a double shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa on August 13.

The burial was in the Canicattì cemetery, with the two coffins buried next to each other.

The coffin of the little girl was placed almost transversally to that of her father, as if the man were holding his daughter on his lap.

Another migrant who died in the shipwreck was buried next to them.

Prior to the funeral on Wednesday, the 25-year-old Somali woman rescued by the Italian Coast Guard in the open seas wanted to do another photographic identification of the bodies after one on Lampedusa in the hours immediately after their bodies were found.

During the Muslim funeral, next to her was Canicattì mayor Vincenzo Corbo, the only government representative present at the cemetery when the three coffins had arrived in the days before.

Weak and held up at times by members of the Memoria Mediterranea association, the young woman simply caressed the white coffin of her child and a stuffed animal that someone had placed on top.

The woman initially said that she wanted to take the bodies of her daughter and husband with her to another country, but then changed her mind and agreed to allow them to be buried in the Canicattì cemetery. However, she wanted them to be buried in a field and not in the burial niches that the municipality has made available.

“From the earth, to the earth,” said Arbache Azeddine, head of the Islamic association Oltre Mare of the Sicilian city of Agrigento.

“I told the mother that she must be patient, resist, and believe in fate. To have faith, one must believe in fate, and it was their fate to die at sea. Seeing children die is a failure. Nothing more than a failure.”

“It is not easy to accept such losses. And to see this little white coffin, so small, breaks the heart,” said Canicattì mayor Vincenzo Corbo.

“They come in search of a bit of peace, work. But they find death.”

“We supported dozens of families in the search and identification procedures for their dearly departed or still missing from the August 13 shipwreck,” said the Memoria Mediterranea association, which supports families and communities in the search for deceased or missing persons at sea or in other border areas.

“Like Ubah, all the families want a dignified burial according to their religious beliefs and that they be allowed to visit” the sites, Memoria Mediterranea added.