One day I met three young Eritreans in the street, no older than 16. They had just bought – and were proudly wearing – souvenir hats from the island bearing the legend ‘I love Lampedusa’. Elsewhere, in the church square, eight young sub-Saharan boys seemed to be following instructions from an older migrant. They did not blend in. Among the small packs of immigrants who roam through the town some make an effort to wave or nod at locals. Others slope along the streets, glaring and already seemingly resentful. The overwhelming predominance of young men is noticeable at all times. They have come here on behalf of their families. In time they hope to send money back to them. Most of all they hope that they will be able to bring their families to join them.

By 2013 the flow was so great that the government took the unusual step of flying recent arrivals off the island and onto Sicily or the mainland. That July, Pope Francis visited Lampedusa to an ecstatic local reaction. He threw a wreath into the sea and presided over an open-air Mass during which he used a small painted boat as an altar. The Pope used the visit to condemn the ‘global indifference’ to what was going on and urged the world to a ‘reawakening of consciences’. For the inhabitants it finally seemed some appropriate recognition of what was happening on their island.

Then on 3 October 2013 a boat that had set out from Misrata, Libya, filled mainly with sub-Saharan Africans, sank off the coast of Lampedusa. The Italian coastguard saved more than a hundred people, but over three hundred migrants drowned. There was a huge outcry. A day of public mourning was announced in Italy, with flags flown at half mast and a minute’s silence observed in all Italian schools. On Lampedusa a silent candlelit procession and evening Mass were attended by most of the residents of the island. So many bodies were brought in that a hangar at Lampedusa’s tiny airport had to be turned into a temporary mortuary.