What If We Can’t Trace The Evidence Back?
Understanding what happens to the bodies of refugees who wash ashore in the Mediterranean is crucial in our search.
One gruesome but important question we have been trying to understand in our search for the Ghost Boat is: What happens to the bodies of people who die at sea? If the worst happened to the people on board, and the bodies eventually reached the coast, how could we try and trace back the evidence? What if we can’t?
In Tunisia, we made the crushing discovery that were no real measures to document or identify bodies—at least in Zarzis, the area where many bodies are found on the beaches. Large numbers of refugees and migrants who died in the Mediterranean were simply dumped in mass, unmarked graves.
In Libya, though, we’ve discovered that the situation is a little different — at least in areas like Tripoli, where the rule of law seems to apply to some degree.
This Just In
Mohamed spoke to the director of the morgue at Tripoli Central Hospital, who revealed a little bit about the body management and burial process.
You can read the full interview here.
“For the bodies we receive here — either the identified bodies or the unidentified ones — after the Attorney General approves burial, we contact the hospital administration and ask them to provide us enough money to make two marble grave markers, so we can know where the body is if there is a request in the future. On each gravestone we write the person’s name — if it is known — as well as the place where their body was found, and the forensic number. On Saturday we are going to bury 36 migrants in Tajura Central Cemetery, and there are other bodies we are going to buried in the Christian Cemetery.”
If anyone from the Ghost Boat made it here, we might be able to cross-reference our future findings and trace them.
As we begin to narrow down the area of water we are searching, we’re going to try and guide ourselves using data, evidence—and a little bit of instinct (Reader Christine Levander, for example, says she’s drawn to the deep water Sirt’e.) Bobbie is talking to an expert in hydrology tomorrow with some specific questions, but are there other people we should be asking? Is there an expert you can find who might fit the bill?
Morsels
A few days ago we shared a letter we sent to the Ghost Boat families, updating them of the current status of the investigation. Ellen Bankhead asks: “Next letter make sure to tell them about the rest of us, the medium readers, who are cheering you on and wracking our brains for new helpful search paths.”
We do! We’re in regular contact with a number of families, and many of them are reading along with the investigation (some have even responded to our posts here.) I think by now everyone is aware that this is a team effort where anybody can join in—but you’re right: it’s always worth reiterating.
Shouts out to Danielle Thomas and Angela Kaplan for recent morale boosts too.
Onward.
