By IANS
Chandigarh : Italy is to build a monument in memory of the 283 illegal South Asian immigrants, including many from Punjab, who were drowned in the sea off the coast of Malta on Christmas night in 1996 while trying to reach Sicily.
The Italian Camera dei Deputati (parliament) has decided to build a monument to honour victims of the Malta boat tragedy. The victims were mainly Indians (170), Sri Lankans and Bangladeshis.
The Malta boat funeral monument is expected to be unveiled on the upcoming 11th anniversary of the tragedy Dec 25. It will be a joint ceremony with families and officials from the countries of the victims participating.
None of the accused, who are Maltese and Greek nationals, have been punished for pushing the innocent migrants to death. They were accused of homicide.
Tana de Zulueta, a leading member of an Italian parliamentarians’ committee, has said that the Italian government will build the monument in memory of those killed irrespective of what the courts decide against the accused.
“Our intention, as stated in the draft legislation tabled by myself and Senator Iovene in both houses, is to arrange for a funeral monument in honour of the victims in the south of Sicily – the point of land they were headed for,” Zulueta has said in a letter to Balwant Singh Khera, chairman of the Malta Boat Tragedy Mission in Punjab.
The illegal immigrants, over 100 of them being young men from Punjab, met their watery grave in the Ionian Sea near Malta after their rusting ferry collided with another vessel and sank. The accident occurred in international waters.
The families of the victims have been trying for over a decade to seek compensation but have not been able to achieve much. The reason: all the victims were illegal immigrants.
Italy has also offered to salvage the wreckage of the boat to recover the remains and belongings of the victims if their families wanted this.
Fishermen of the area have informed the authorities that human remains and belongings of the victims sometimes get entangled in their fishing nets.