Late into the night, a fleet of rusting fishing boats and rubber dinghies are setting sail to the Old Continent from the beach of Zuwara, Libya, Africa. The land on which the European Union extended its tentacles till five decades ago.
Today the Mediterranean has become a border fenced off by barbed wires through which thousands of dead lives in the waters can never cross.
Tonight is another night that countless innocent people lose their lives. It’s just another night that one of the dinghies being swallowed by the waves, vanishing into the soundless, gloomy Mediterranean Sea. We are left with nothing but heart-wrenching screams, powerless arms, freezing cold, splashing waves, and troubled waters.
When the Sun comes up tomorrow, politicians will hang their head in shame preparing new declarations for the TV shows, more promises for the newspaper’s columns, different news to spread throughout radio speakers. But when the urge is gone, the deads will be forever forgotten.
Ave Europa is a sound art piece about the tragedy that cyclically repeats itself in the Mediterranean: boats that face the waves, that turn upside down, letting their human cargos be drown in the waves while in the countries of Europe other men and other women watch with indifference the distant drama broadcasted on radio and on TV in the evening news.
Created, recorded and mixed by Marco Stefanelli
With the voices of Azim, Abdul Karim and Farah and recordings from the archives of Frontex, Italian Coast Guard and Médicins Sans Frontières