On Lampedusa, locals are front-row first responders to migrant crisis

Tucked away inside PortoM, a small performance center on the rugged southern coastline of Lampedusa, sits an exhibition of migrant relics that tell a tale of hope and despair.

The items range from life vests and lost boots to cookware and discarded toys, all once used by those journeying across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. Giacomo Sferlazzo, PortoM’s founder and a passionate keeper of Sicilian cultural heritage, assembled and displays them to encourage visitors to reflect on migrants’ lack of safe, legal access to the European Union.

“Solutions to the migrant crisis do exist, but this is not in the EU’s political interests,”