The new report by MEM.MED – Mediterranean Memory and CLEDU Palermo aims to document precisely what happens in Italy today when the body of a person who died at the border is recovered, or when a family reports the disappearance of a loved one in the absence of a body.

It is the result of years of collective work based on alliances built with families, attentive listening to their experiences, monitoring institutional practices, and gathering tools to denounce the systemic violence of borders and support demands for truth and justice.

The document highlights legal gaps and contradictions, as well as practices that function thanks to the commitment of communities and individuals. It maps what happens in Sicily and Sardinia in the treatment of the bodies of people who died at sea, identifying obstacles and political responsibilities.

Drawing on emblematic cases—such as Cutro and Roccella Ionica—it further shows how decisive the presence of families is, and how urgent it is to recognise them as central interlocutors.

The report concludes by identifying, in a legislative proposal, a viable path to provide a normative framework for families’ demands for truth and justice, establish the right to search for and identify border deaths, and create a structured system of actions, duties, and responsibilities relating to deaths and disappearances.

This report is, above all, an act of memory and struggle.

We dedicate it to Afrata, who died at 16 after a journey marked by violence and institutional neglect.

To her, and to all those killed or disappeared at the borders.