It is the night between 25 and 26 February 2023. A gulet leaving Turkey with around 180 people on board breaks in two, running aground amid the violence of the waves against a shoal a few meters from the coast of Steccato di Cutro, in the province of Crotone.
It is a tragedy: 94 victims, with 34 children, and a judicial investigation still underway for failure to provide assistance and negligent disaster.
Marco Damilano tells the story a year later with a special episode of The Horse and the Tower, filmed directly on the site of the shipwreck, on 23 February at 8.40pm on Rai3.
"It is the first time that the program has left the studio - the journalist tells ANSA - We wanted to take ourselves to the site of one of the most dramatic events of recent years and which we have always told in recent months, trying to reconstruct what happened and who had to intervene. It seemed right to me, in a weekend crowded with celebrations, to be a sort of preview. We will obviously also be there at the demonstration on Sunday as well as at the vigil on the 26th at 4 in the morning, the time of the shipwreck".
The program was welcomed by the same PalaMilone in Crotone which a year ago saw the long rows of coffins of the victims and where President Mattarella went to bring the pain of the whole country.
"In the parterre we will have relatives of the victims and survivors, the associations, the mayor of Crotone and some witnesses. I am happy - reflects Damilano - that Rai is supporting this special evening with its entire production structure, which is certainly qualifying for the public service. I call that of Cutro - he continues - a massacre, not a shipwreck, for the number of deaths, for the responsibilities still to be ascertained but visible in the dynamics of the events. There is a country that has felt wounded and wants to give justice to the families of the victims, because he believes that it is everyone's tragedy and not just those who were involved or, even worse, those who are considered foreigners".
In the following hours, a year ago, the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, also arrived in Cutro, whose statements caused a lot of discussion ("we must not leave").
There the Council of Ministers was convened from which the decree came out announced as a "turning point" in the fight against human traffickers.
The victims' relatives were welcomed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ten days later at Palazzo Chigi.
But was it really a turning point?
"I wouldn't say - replies Damilano - A rapid family reunification of the survivors was promised and that their relatives could arrive via humanitarian corridors. It was a commitment declared by the Prime Minister even on a personal, as well as institutional, level, instead that very decree granted a special permit which, however, does not allow reunification. There has been a tightening of action against traffickers, but there is no legal possibility of arriving in Italy without relying on them for those who would instead have the right to asylum because they flee from countries like Afghanistan or Iran".
In Cutro "we almost saw two distinct Italys: on one side the Palace, on the other the pain of the people. An important double track in the face of a sense of humanity that also becomes a political value".
Because, he concludes, "we are talking not about an invasion, nor about millions of people, but about individuals who could be welcomed, with humanitarian corridors, legal entries and with a widespread reception system that has been dismantled. On these points, no only nothing was done, but steps backwards were taken. Also for this reason, we will try to tell what happened that night and what he left as a commitment, so that it doesn't happen again".
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