Scandal in Italy: Salvini and Meloni sing about drowning as bodies of shipwrecked Calabria keep turning up

Controversy continues in Italy after photos go viral Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini sing in karaoke.

The scene unfolded last Friday when Italy’s prime minister and minister of infrastructure and transport began singing at the League leader’s 50th birthday celebration. Salvini and Meloni performed Marinella’s song, a 1964 song well known in Italy, about a Calabrian woman who drowned. All this is happening at a very delicate moment, after the shipwreck on February 26 right off the coast of Calabria, and in the days when bodies continue to arrive on the shore.

The video of the two leaders singing during the birthday party, which was also attended by their partner in the government, the leader of Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi, was published by the newspaper’s deputy director. daily Nicola Porro on his social networks.

Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini sing “La canzone di Marinella” by Fabrizio De André at the festival for the 50th anniversary of the leghista. (Video by Nicola Porro) pic.twitter.com/Mmv2eMb8eC

— Giacomo Salvini (@salvini_giacomo) March 10, 2023

“Yesterday (Friday) was a very painful day for all of us, we buried several coffins, including one of a little girl. I have to say that I was very impressed by the pictures I saw from the government press conference and Salvini and Meloni karaokewho did not want to meet the families of the victims or pay tribute to the coffins, but found time to celebrate the 50th birthday of Minister Salvini,” said Matteo Lepore, mayor of Bologna, the city where the funeral of some of the victims of the Brodolo Cutro was held.

This scene did not bypass the opposition either. “They did not honor the dead from Čutra, they made a pathetic staging, they changed their institutional obligations to go sing at Salvini’s party. Inhumanity, cynicism, improvisation and cruelty: this government explained it in a few gestures. What a pity…”, said the spokeswoman of the Democratic Party (PD) Simona Malpezzi.

Last Thursday, Meloni organized a ministerial council in Čutra, the town where the shipwreck of a barge with about 200 migrants took place, of which only 80 survived. The bodies of 74 people were found, including 30 minors.

However, none of the members of the Government went to the sports palace of Crotone, where the coffins with the victims were placed, and the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, and the leader of the PD, Elly Shlein, were present.

“The two Christians Meloni and Salvini do not go to Cutro to pray in front of the coffins, they leave Cutro not wanting to see them, and then in the evening a little karaoke for Salvini’s birthday,” journalist Selvaggia Lucarelli announced on Twitter.

Many pointed out that the two presenters were singing Marinella’s song Fabrizio de Andrea, inspired by the story of a Calabrian emigrant who was found drowned in a river. “They sing on the wrong day. In the wrong place,” said the director Stamp.