These personal objects are among items found at sea following shipwrecks, each of them able to tell a story of a life in flux – a straw hat, a Koran, an Eritrean child’s drawing testifying to the torture. Did these objects belong to those who survived crossing the Mediterranean Sea, or those who perished? More than 30,000 migrants have drowned trying to reach Italy’s shores in the last seven years, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

The museum that displays these objects hosted 75,000 visitors since opening seven years ago on the upper floor of Lampedusa’s Pelagie Archaeological Museum. But it has recently been forced to close its doors to visitors as they could not afford the new €10,000 annual rent.