MARSA, Malta -- The morgue in Malta overflows with handwritten notes and radiant flowers, commemorating the migrants whose bodies were brought here on Saturday after they drowned while attempting to cross the Mediterranean.
"R.I.P. brothers and sisters. You matter," says one note.
"In memory of the many lives lost and in solidarity, as migrants ourselves -- The Tortell family," reads another.
"It is a beautiful display," says Mater Dei mortuary manager David Grima of the abundance of flowers that include bouquets of roses, lilies and chrysanthemums. "All these people -- perfect strangers to the migrants -- took great care to bring every one of these and write these notes."
The migrants' ship capsized off the coast of Libya late on Saturday. More than 800 people died when the boat sank in the central Mediterranean, which is plied by human smugglers who pack rickety ships full of desperate people fleeing war and oppression in Northern Africa and the Middle East.
After the mass drowning, Ivan Falzon, a local hospital official, put out a call for flowers to remember the migrants, who have no one to mourn them on the island, given that their families live far away and might not even know that their loved ones have died.
Rather than foul stench of corpses, #Malta morgue smells of flowers. Scores brought for 24 #migrants killed at sea. pic.twitter.com/BqVT2K9WwR— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 22, 2015
The response from the locals was overwhelming -- especially after people became aware of racist remarks on social media, targeting migrants.
Maltese President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca visited the mortuary on Tuesday, telling reporters the touching gesture shows Malta has a "compassionate soul."
Locked below deck as the ship plunged to the bottom of the sea, hundreds of people could not be recovered by the rescuers from the Italian Coast Guar, their final resting place the dark blue depths of the Mediterranean.
The bodies of 24 people were recovered, however, and brought here, to the Mater Dei Mortuary, where Grima and his staff are conducting autopsies and using whatever possessions found with the bodies to try to identify the victims.
Most of the dead who have been brought here are in their mid-20s, Grima estimates, though he adds that there is at least one teenager no older than 14. Beyond that, details are scarce.
One man -- a refugee himself who survived the sea crossing last year -- arrived to try and identify someone he thought might be a relative. It wasn't.
By Wednesday afternoon, none of the 24 had been identified.There are no ship manifests, the migrants rarely carry identification, and they often come from countries that haven't registered their disappearance.
With a funeral scheduled for Thursday, most of the victims are likely to be buried nameless, with their families at home left to wonder what became of their loved ones who braved the perilous journey to Europe in search of a better life.
Sitting outside the Marsa Open Centre for refugees, Isa, a refugee in his twenties, recounts his journey to Malta four years ago. He says he survived a 10-day voyage on a fishing boat with 200 others who set sail from Libya at the start of the country's violent civil war in 2011.
"When you hear the bombs, the explosions," he says, "that's when you get on a boat."
The journey was another kind of hell.
"The ship was stinking. People were sick. Some got sick and died, and they were thrown overboard," says Isa, who spoke on the condition that his last name not be used as he hasn't been granted asylum yet.
Before boarding the ship, Isa paid his smugglers $1,700 for a spot. The smugglers hastily explained to one man how to operate the derelict vessel before handing over a compass and sending them on their way. "Go north. That is all they told us," Isa explains.
Smugglers often give migrants a compass, like this one, before shipping out. "Go north," is all they say. #Malta pic.twitter.com/QfWkpZvquq— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 22, 2015
He says he has had no contact with his family since arriving here, so he understands what it must be like for those on the other side of the Mediterranean to be in the dark about the status of the people involved in last weekend's tragedy.
"In some way, it can be better if [the families] don't know they died," Isa says. "They can live in a fantasy where their brothers and sisters are living in paradise."