Italy

• There is still no peace for the living or the dead two weeks after tragic shipwreck.
• A girl aged five or six was discovered on Saturday morning.
• Many of the dead were identified by the local coroner’s office.

There is still no peace for the living or the dead two weeks after a boat carrying migrants sank off the coast of southern Italy, and the missing – mostly children – continue to wash up on the beaches.

The latest, a girl aged five or six, was discovered on Saturday morning, bringing the total to 74 since the ill-fated boat broke apart on the rocks off the village of Cutro on February 26. Almost half were minors.

Many of the dead were identified by the local coroner’s office, including Torpekai Amarkhel, a 42-year-old female journalist from Afghanistan who was killed along with her husband and two of their three children.

Her other child, a seven-year-old daughter, is one of the approximately 30 people who are still missing and presumed dead as a result of the tragedy.

Amarkhel fled Afghanistan with her family following the crackdown on women, according to her sister Mida, who had emigrated to Rotterdam and was involved in a United Nations project in which Amarkhel was involved.

Shahida Raza, a football and hockey player for Pakistan’s national team, was also killed. A friend stated that she was travelling in order to provide a better future for her disabled son.

Those discovered were initially assigned alphanumeric code numbers rather than names. When first responders discovered the body of 28-year-old Afghan Abiden Jafari, they only identified her as KR16D45 – KR for the nearby city of Crotone, 16 because she was the 16th victim discovered, D for donna or woman, and 45, her estimated age.

However, after transporting her to the mortuary, they discovered she was a women’s rights activist who had been threatened by the Taliban, prompting her to risk her life at sea.

The body of a six-year-old boy, initially identified as KR70M6, was named Hakef Taimoori by his uncle.

However, after transporting her to the mortuary, they discovered she was a women’s rights activist who had been threatened by the Taliban, prompting her to risk her life at sea.

The body of a six-year-old boy, initially identified as KR70M6, was named Hakef Taimoori by his uncle.

The dead have also become embroiled in a conflict between the Italian state and family members.

In accordance with Italy’s protocol for irregular migrants who die attempting to enter Italy, the Interior Ministry ordered that all bodies be transferred from Calabria, where the caskets had been on display in an auditorium, to the Islamic cemetery of Bologna for burial.

On Wednesday, family members who either survived the crash or travelled from other parts of Europe to claim their loved ones’ remains protested in front of the auditorium with makeshift signs and a sit-in.

There is a growing firestorm about the rescue itself, set against the backdrop of the saga about what to do with both the survivors and the victims.

The day before the ship sank, a surveillance plane for European border control Frontex identified it and alerted the Italian Coast Guard.

According to the Coast Guard, the vessel was not identified as a migrant boat and did not appear to be in distress.

The Coast Guard’s heat sensing surveillance images show that only one person was visible on board the ship when they flew over it.

Survivors told media and human rights organisations that they were locked in the ship’s hull and only allowed to come up for air at intervals during the four-day journey from Turkey.

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