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Corps migrants - 2015/2017 Max Hirzel

© Max Hirzel

Italy/Senegal 2015/2017.

"In the desert I saw a grave, it was of a girl of Douala, and I wondered if her parents, her brothers and sisters knew that their baby was there“. I met Alpha in Bamako, in 2011. The idea to work on the management of migrant deceased bodies originated that day, with his words. I began from the cemeteries, I wanted to understand where and how those bodies are buried, how many are identified and how many not. I noticed many similarities between the reception of migrant people survivors and the management of migrant's corpses: codes, lines, numbers, suits, masks. In both cases, the individual histories bring us to the person. These bodies, as quantity and age of the victims, represent an anomaly, a huge aberration that can be mistaken for fatality. I wanted to show this anomaly. One corpse, one person. A number instead of the name. I was getting closer to the heart of the matter, the identification. In one side of the Mediterranean sea there are people working for returning a name to a body. In the other one the missing families that without that body cannot celebrate the mourning. I met many stories, as those of Angelo Milazzo, policeman of Syracuse Attorney, and Mohamed Matok, Syrian lawyer, that leaved Damascus especially to visit the grave of his brother, identified by Angelo. Then the story of the so-called “boat of innocents” - which sank on April 18th 2015, with the loss of more than 700 lives – that intersects with the work of Cristina Cattaneo, director of Labanof, Forensic Anthropology Laboratory of Milan University, and its staff and that of the young autopsy technicians of the Palermo Policlinic. Finally, in south Senegal, I met the family of Mamadou, missing for two years, he's an alleged victim of this same shipwreck of April 18th 2015. So this has become the story of all of them, as well as of the responsibility of us, Europeans

Italie/Sénégal, 2015/2017.

L'idée de travailler sur la gestion des corps des migrantes décédés naît en 2011, quand au Mali un jeune migrant me raconta: "Dans le désert j'ai vu une tombe, c'était d'une fille de Douala, et je me suis posé la question si ses parents savaient que leur enfant était là". J'ai commencé par les cimetières, je voulais comprendre où ces personnes sont enterrés et comment, combien avec un nom ou quoi, à la place. Ces corps, pour quantité et âge des victimes,  représentent une anomalie, une géante aberration qu'on s'habitue à échanger pour fatalité. Je voulais montrer l'anomalie. J'ai vu des similitudes entre accueil des vifs et gestion des morts: codes, lignes, numéros, combinaisons, masques. Dans les deux cas, les histoires individuelles nous reportent à la personne. D'un côté de la Méditerranée il y a des gens qu'ils s'efforcent de restituer un nom à un corps. De l'autre, initialement seulement imaginées car ne pas encore accessibles à moi, les familles des disparus qui ne peuvent pas célébrer le deuil sans ce corps. Les uns savent peu ou rien des autres, la rencontre entre les deux côtés est le cercle qui parfois se ferme. Celle-ci est ainsi devenue l'histoire d'eux tous.

Voir plus de reportages de Max Hirzel

Chargement…
At Labanof, a pair of Real Madrid gloves with the names of Ronaldo and Kaka and a tablet of chocolate, among the finds of the...
Corps migrants
Corps migrants
Corps migrants
A mortuary operator stocking some coffins in the Melilli NATO base
The two mortuary operators assembling the zinc parts of the coffins, in the area of the hangar adjacent to the red zone; the ...
Corps migrants
Old graves of unidentified migrants in the cemetery of Lampedusa. Since the '90' Lampedusa have to bury migrant bodies.
In the Nato base of Melilli, near Syracuse (Sicily), the wreckage of 18th April 2015 shipwreck recovered by Italian Navy one ...
During the analysis of the clothes, the only shoe of one of the victims
In the port of Catania, Sicily, the disembarkement of a container with 49 bodies of migrants people, died in the hold of thei...
In the hangar of Melilli Nato base, the freezer truck containing the migrant victims bodies that still have to be analysed at...
Corps migrants
In the Nato base of Melilli, near Syracuse (Sicily), the wreckage of 18th April 2015 shipwreck recovered by Italian Navy one ...
Some migrants landing in the port of Augusta, Sicily; they were 105 and were rescued by the German military boat Werra a few ...
Daniele Darricello, Debora Mazzarelli – anthropologist of Labanof – and Marco Raimondi, getting in the freezer truck to pick ...
The tomb of 9 people in the cemetery of Lampedusa. 6 of them died on August 1st. 2011, by suffocation . The other 3 were foun...
Daniele Darricello, autopsy technician, leaving the Polyclinic of Palermo with his tools, to join the NATO base of Melilli, n...
Corps migrants
Corps migrants
Corps migrants
Corps migrants
A mortuary operator working in the area of the hangar adjacent to the red zone; the coffins are composed of an internal part ...
Corps migrants
Ginevra Malta, getting ready for receiving the next body bag to bring in the red zone, the autopsy tent, of the Nato base of ...
Corps migrants
One victim's clothing, ready to be analysed and catalogued
Corps migrants
A little niece in the Mamadou's room, in the village of Soukouta, southern Senegal; he's a presumed victim of the wreck of Ap...
Corps migrants
Mohamed Matok, Syrian lawyer, in the house of Caritas that was hosting him in Syracuse. He was passing the day at the Prosecu...
A break moment, for one of the two mortuary operators
On the quay of Augusta's port a policewoman helps a colleague to put her mask, upon the arrival of Werra, a German military b...
Mohamed Matok meet Angelo Milazzo at the airport of Catania, finally. Since 2 years they was comunicating via WhattsApp getti...
In the Mamadou's room, his brother Ousmane indicates with his hand the picture of Awa, a young bride of Mamadou, who gave bir...
Corps migrants
In the Prosecutor's office of Syracuse, Mohamed Matok watches a document for a while; it was among  the personal belongings o...
Stanilla Lucheschi insère dans la base de données la description de chaque effet personnel concernant le naufrage du 18 avril...
Lara Olvieri, extracts from a bag some finds, including some banknotes; on the table, two SIM cards. Archeologist and forensi...
Corps migrants
At Labanof, a plastic rose, among the finds of the April 18, 2015 shipwreck
Mohamed Matok, in front of the tomb of his brother Bilal, died at the age of sixteen, in the cemetery of Sortino, near Syracu...
Corps migrants
Corps migrants
Corps migrants
The mortuary operators have just closed the coffin of the victim marked as code number PM390370
Corps migrants
A break moment, for one of the two mortuary operators, in the hangar of Melilli NATO base
Corps migrants
A mortuary operator with a Navy officer transporting some coffins of migrant victims of 18th April 2015 shipwreck, to the are...
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