National Day in Remembrance of the Victims of Immigration in Italy Date in the current year: October 3, 2024

Lampedusa is the southernmost island of Italy. Being the European territory closest to Libya, it has been a transit point for irregular migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East since the early 2000s. The island has an immigrant reception center with a capacity of 801 people, which has been greatly exceeded by numerous irregular migrants arriving from Africa by boat.

On October 3, 2013, a boat carrying migrants sank off Lampedusa. Although it had sailed from Libya, many of the migrants it was carrying were originally from Ghana, Eritrea and Somalia. The Italian Coast Guard rescued about 150 people, but more than 360 migrants died in the shipwreck. Some of the bodies were never recovered.

A month after the shipwreck, several representatives of the Democratic Party proposed to the parliament to establish a memorial day in honor of the victims. However, it took a year to start discussing the proposal and almost two more years to come to a consensus. Finally, in March 2016, the Senate officially established National Day in Remembrance of the Victims of Immigration. Its main goal is to honor the memory of all boat people who died in shipwrecks, as well as to raise public awareness of the Mediterranean migrant crisis.