Ambiguous loss is a form of mourning that cannot be processed as there is no body to confirm death. It is the emotion experienced by the relatives of missing people; the hope to see their loved ones again, even years later, never goes away, and turns into an endless limbo of uncertainty. Personal suffering is compounded by technical problems, such as legal shortcomings and institutions not fulfilling their roles, the possibility of getting answers becomes ever more remote, and pain is joined by anger rendering the problem social. This above all when the difference in treatment for “our” dead and “theirs” is highlighted, as though there were first- and second-class deaths.
This is the context in which LABANOF, the Laboratory of Anthropology and Forensic Orthodontics at the University of Milan directed by Cristina Cattaneo, operates, carrying out a small yet extremely important miracle; providing an identity, a history and even dignity to the nameless bodies of the migrants claimed by the many accidents in the Mediterranean. 
Based on Naufraghi senza volto, the book written by Cristina Cattaneo and winner of the 2019 Galileo literary award, a theatrical reading with the voices of Laura Curino and Renato Sarti tells of the dramatic situation of the Mediterranean shipwreck victims from the point of view of those working, through autopsy analysis, to restore a name and dignity to migrants who have died at sea.