Thirty-five stuffed animals arranged in a circle with a white t-shirt in the center with the writing Kr46M0 written on it, the wording used to indicate one of the children who had died just a few months old.
And then 94 candles lit to risk the darkness of the night.
Thus, on the beach of Steccato di Cutro at least a hundred people wanted to remember the tragedy of a year ago, the shipwreck of the gulet Summer Love which caused the death of 94 people, 35 of them minors.
An initiative promoted by the 26 February network - which brings together around 400 associations - celebrated at 4am, the time when the gulet collided with a shoal about a hundred meters from the shore.
Some survivors and families of the victims also wanted to be present.
Heartbreaking, the tears of an Afghan woman who lost her sister and two grandchildren in the shipwreck.
The woman couldn't handle the emotion of finding herself a few meters from that sea - rough as it was that night - when it took away her loved ones and she fell ill.
"I relived the same emotions as that day, when the boat sank and it was very difficult."
She told the story of Samir, an 18-year-old Afghan who saved himself by clinging to a piece of wood.
"The help arrived late - he remembers - we had seen a light and we thought it was the help but instead it was a fishing boat but when we arrived on the beach there was no one there".
She now lives in Hamburg and the Italian and German governments - like all the other family members of the victims and survivors - ask to be able to reunite with the family members who remained in their homeland with the opening of humanitarian corridors.
During the silent commemoration, the uncle of a boy who died in the shipwreck recited some verses from the Koran.
Then survivors and families of the victims prayed towards Mecca.
At the end, two survivors, together with the two fishermen who first intervened at the site of the massacre, threw a wreath of flowers, then hugged each other, melting into tears at the memory of that night a year ago.
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