Theresa Maggio

Seven corpses arrived on the towboat Vos Thalassa along with some 1,040 migrants saved at sea yesterday in several operations on the high seas, according to today's La Repubblica online. The dead were five women and two boys. Among those saved, almost all of them from sub-Saharan Africa, were three pregnant women and fifteen children.
Awaiting them at the dock were the police chief of Palermo Antonella De Miro and city Councilman Giusto Catania who supplied seven coffins for the dead. Many volunteers from Caritas, a Roman Catholic charity, distributed food and shoes.
The towboat is the first ship with migrants to arrive after the reopening of ports at the conclusion of the G7 meeting in Taormina. Tomorrow morning at 8 the Coast Guard ship Gregoretti is expected to arrive with 254 more migrant and two cadavers. Read More 

33 casualties on board, including 7 children, 14 women and 12 men, as boat carrying approximately 750 people partially capsizes in the Mediterranean.

24th May 2017 saw one of MOAS’ most tragic rescues to date. Overcrowding and sea swell tipped hundreds into the water during a rescue yesterday. 32 bodies were recovered to MOAS vessel Phoenix alongside 604 survivors, one of whom  Read More 

What Trump can expect in Taormina according to the New York Times. Click on the caption to read the whole story in the NYT.

Trump fires the people investigating him. In Sicily, with the complicity of politicians, the mafia kills them. RIP Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards who were blown up with him 25 years ago today. Read "Excellent Cadavers" by Alexander Stille.

Taormina’s geographical position in the Mediterranean and Sicily’s crucial role in Italy’s approach to migrants is particularly symbolic as the refugee crisis will be one of the topics on this year’s G7 agenda. And indeed, its natural and archeological beauties make it the perfect scene to promote Italy’s image abroad.

I am subscribed to the Dinolfo Brothers feed. They are amazing video makers. They work out of Gangi, and I believe it is old Gangi in this wedding clip but I could be wrong. What a town. What talent these guys have. Talent, humor, appreciation of beauty. Dang! Are there USA photographers who make wedding movies like this?  Read More 

From The Guardian:

A mafia boss has been gunned down while riding his bicycle in Sicily, in what appeared to have been the sort of mob killing that has become rarer in recent years as dangerous figures have been locked up.

Giuseppe Dainotti, 67, was shot in the head as he cycled along a street in Palermo, almost 25 years to the day since anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone was killed in a bomb blast on a motorway on the Italian island.

Photographs of Monday’s crime scene evoked decades of violence in the Sicilian capital, showing Dainotti’s body covered by a sheet, only his shoes on show, and the white bicycle he was riding lying where it fell. Read More 

The boat docked shortly after 7:30 this morning at the port of Trapani, Sicily. The Italian Coast Guard ship "Diciotti" carried 512 immigrants rescued in the last few days on the Mediterranean Sea. Also aboard were seven cadavers of people who had drowned before rescuers could reach them.

Rescuers have been accused by some Sicilian authorities of taking money from traffickers to fund their efforts. Here is part of the response from MOAS:
"When questioned about why all our disembarkations are carried out in Italy, and not say, Malta or Tunisia, our representatives explained that MOAS is not the decision-maker in this  Read More 

United Nations officials said on Tuesday that 245 migrants were feared dead in two shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea. The death toll represents a major increase to an already grim tally this year.

More than 1,300 people are now estimated to have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe in 2017, most while attempting to  Read More 

From La Repubblica 8 May 2017:

Luigi Duro, a 44-year-old security guard who was laid off from his job, decided to protect the splendid white, flowing "Fountain of Shame" in Piazza Pretoria as an act of civil service and to keep his feeling of having a purpose in life. He started his vigil yesterday morning.
He made himself a little badge with his name on it so he can look more authoritative, he said. "I decided to spend my time working for the common good," he said. " I decided to put my twenty-some years of experience in security to some good, without making any profit from it." Read More