A journey through the identification of a deceased person
On 6 March, Rahman Farazi died on board the Sea Watch 5. Rahman was 19, from the Bangladeshi city of Maripur.
Rahman died after being rescued in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea by the German NGO Sea Watch. He was found at sea in an extremely critical condition due to toxic fuel fumes he had inhaled in the hold of the boat.
Despite repeated attempts by the Sea Watch medical team to revive him, Rahman died on board, surrounded by the 55 survivors rescued and the crew who had watched him die after saving his life at sea.
Given the critical condition of Rahman, an immediate evacuation request was submitted to the Italian authorities, but to no avail.
“When Rahman arrived at the onboard hospital, he had already been unconscious for an unknown length of time, and his condition immediately appeared serious. Resuscitation measures were immediately put in place, including ventilation with an Ambu bag and oxygen. Pain relief medication was administered immediately, as a facial contraction was evident. Rahman’s clothes were soaked in water and fuel and were removed to interrupt skin contact as quickly as possible and avoid aggravating the burns caused by this combination. The intense smell of hydrocarbons quickly invaded the hospital. The medical team estimated Rahman’s age at around 17, to calculate the correct dose of medication. Warm blankets and hot water bottles were applied to combat hypothermia. Numerous crew members, medical and otherwise, assisted in every way possible. Along with Rahman, 4 other rescued youngsters were suffering from breathing difficulties and hypothermia, and needed help from the other doctors/nurses on board. Around 2 hours after the rescue, when their condition had stabilized, I was able to relieve the doctor who had been looking after Rahman.
When initiating resuscitation maneuvers in an out-of-hospital setting (i.e. away from a hospital), following the protocol to the letter is not enough to make the most correct decisions and plan a therapeutic strategy. It’s essential to anticipate how long it will take the patient to reach a resuscitation unit equipped for the most advanced procedures. Unfortunately, 2 hours after the rescue, no one yet knew when or where Rahman could have been evacuated and cared for. This generated a feeling of insecurity, frustration and inevitability among the health workers. Despite our efforts, the maneuvers would probably have been insufficient. By this time, it was obvious that Rahman’s noble organs (brain and heart) were beginning to suffer and fail. After more than 3 hours, all together, we decided to make the last attempts, until it was no longer possible to do more, if not to further alleviate the pain of our young patient, whose name we didn’t yet know. Rahman’s care was not limited to this; after his death, 2 crew members prepared his body to face the hours or days of travel that still separated him from the then still unknown port of disembarkation.”
Chiara, Medic onboard Sea Watch 5
“When we learned of Rahman’s death, we discussed how to tell the other survivors on board. After a moment of collective mourning, we started looking for clues to identify this person. We knew neither his name, nor his nationality, not even his age. The other survivors told us that Rahman was traveling alone, that nobody knew him, but that he was probably from Bangladesh. We also looked for clues in his personal belongings, but found nothing. We were desperate, as there was nothing on board to give an identity to this deceased person. In coordination with the medical team, we took photos of the body, in the hope that this might help later in the identification process.”
Sophia, Protection officer onboard Sea Watch 5
After landing, his body was taken to the morgue of Pozzallo’s municipal cemetery. For a long time, his name remained unknown: “unidentified” was the word that initially appeared on his death certificate..
In the meantime, supportive civil society is moving to the two shores: some members of the Sea Watch crew have made contact with Mem.Med, Asgi, activists, researchers, and other civil society actors.
Together they sent a letter to the authorities, including the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Agrigento, the Municipality of Pozzallo, and the Extraordinary Commissariat of the Italian Government for Missing Persons. The letter recommended that certain procedures laid down in national and international law be followed, including DNA sampling, data collection, a dignified burial, respect for religious rites, and repatriation of the body if necessary.
Meanwhile, photos of Rahman’s face and body were circulated among the Bangladeshi community in Italy in an attempt to find the family of the deceased. Through some representatives of the Bengali community in Livorno, the family was traced and asked for assistance in identifying and repatriating the body.
“I am proud that we were able to help find Rahman’s family. And I am very proud to have worked together with the associations that support the search for missing persons and the contact with the families, it is a very important thing. “
Polas, foreign community representative in Livorno
The family contacted the associations: it was Rasel, Rahman’s elder brother, who demanded truth and justice for his brother. He appointed the Mem.Med lawyer as his representative to help him access the procedures for identifying and repatriating Rahman’s body.
Rasel – who, like his brother, but with a different outcome, crossed the sea and came to Europe, living and working in Bergamo – leaves the city where he lives as soon as he learns the news and arrives in Sicily on a Sunday at the beginning of April: he wants to bring back the body of his relative in person.
In Palermo, he met with some representatives of Mem.Med. Together they went to Agrigento to visit the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Agrigento, the competent authority for the case.
After hours of waiting in the corridors of the Agrigento court, Rasel was told to go home because he had not been received by the Public Prosecutor. Rasel left and returned to northern Italy.
A few weeks later, after complex and repeated communication with the secretary of the Public Prosecutor to whom the case is entrusted, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Agrigento contacts Rahman’s lawyer and entrusts her and the association she represents with the task of making an identification with the family member, which will be done through a visual presentation of some photos of the body contained in the investigation file and, in particular, in the section of the autopsy.
Some representatives of Mem.Med traveled to Milan to identify the body: at the Naga Association in Milan, they showed Rasel some photographs of the body provided by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Rasel had no doubts. He recognized the body, it was his brother. A report formalized Rahman’s identity.
You are not a number.
You are not a life cut into fragments. Tortured and silenced.
You are not.
The humiliation of the human oppressor.
It is an inescapable violence.
You are not.
The offices of death,
The mechanics of existence.
Normal office procedures.
Investigation, autopsy, case number.
Please go back where you came from.
Photographic file.
Front and back.
Black and white.
Frost stains on page 4, page 6, page 11 and 12.
Faded ink on office paper.
Your body,
The surgical politics of death.
Your body,
bears the marks of those who do not want to see you.
Of those who let you die.
But you are there.
On an April day,
in the north of a world that closed your eyes before you could come.
On an April day,
Sitting together, tracing your face like a mosaic.
Formulating your name,
denying your absence.
You are there.
Your brother’s gaze, the same, you are.
His journey by land and sea. The same quest for freedom. You are.
The reappearance, you exist.
You are there.
This story also bears your name.
Silvia, Mem.Med Memoria Mediterranea
Although it is a moment of extreme grief, this act brings some relief to the family: Rahman has been found, and the name that the border regime and its dehumanizing devices had taken from him has been restored.
But this is not enough to repatriate the body, as Rasel and the family in Bangladesh, who are still waiting for their loved one, demand.
A month and a half passed: even though the mayor and some councilors of the municipality of Pozzallo (RG) were extremely cooperative and sensitive to the case, delaying the burial of the body and respecting the wishes of the Bengali family until the very end, the bureaucratic process of obtaining the death certificate and the authorizations to move the body was long and bumpy.
The process of repatriating the body is extremely costly, not only in bureaucratic and logistical terms but also in financial terms. The family has been able to meet these costs thanks in part to donations from associations and a contribution from the Bangladeshi embassy.
On June 6, Rahman’s body left the mortuary of Pozzallo Cemetery with a name, a date of birth, an identity, and a return address: that of his home in Bangladesh.
On June 8, his body arrived in Madaripur, Rahman’s hometown, where, four months after his death, his family could finally pay tribute to him.
“In addition to a wrongful death like this, which in itself is a painful and violent thing for the family, we suffered from how the system that is supposed to deal with identification and repatriation acted. It was absurd. I want to say that at least in the midst of this absurdity I found the solidarity of so many people who supported us.”
Rasel, Rahman’s brother
Mem.med
