President Sergio Mattarella
visited the Sicilian island of Lampedusa on Friday.
The island in the Strait of Sicily lies closer to North
Africa than to Italy, and is often the first landfall - along
with the Greek island of Lesbos - for asylum seekers fleeing
across the Mediterranean.
"Italy and Europe owe a debt of gratitude to Lampedusa for
the lives saved, for the aid extended, and for the hospitality
given to migrants," Mattarella said.
"Lampedusa is the gateway to Europe...it has exemplified
Europe's best aspect to those who arrived and feel it is a
second homeland".
Mattarella also met with a policewoman who has been looking
after an orphan nine-month-old baby girl who was rescued off an
asylum seeker vessel and whose mother died during the crossing.
"She is necessarily an Italian," the president said of the
little girl, who arrived on Lampedusa on May 25 and is named
Favour.
Mattarella also presided at the opening of the first
exhibition at Lampedusa's Museum of Trust and Dialogue for
the Mediterranean, featuring dozens of works on loan from
major museums.
The Uffizi Galleries sent a Caravaggio painting in
remembrance of Aylan, the three-year-old who died while fleeing
the Syrian civil war and became a symbol for all refugee
victims.
The painting is of Sleeping Cupid, an angel in a deep sleep
- a tribute not only to the little boy who washed up dead on a
Turkish beach but to all the children who died, who were were
born, and who were rescued during the perilous crossing to
Europe.
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