2023 Pylos migrant boat disaster

Although the European migrant crisis had reached a peak in 2015, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) reported in 2018 that there were at least 65,000 migrant smugglers being tracked in the booming illegal trade, which had become one of the "fastest growing forms of international organised crime." The people-smuggling business developed as a result of Libya's ongoing crisis, alongside instability in neighboring countries, with Libya becoming a hub for moving migrants and refugees across the Mediterranean into Europe. According to a February 2023 International Organization for Migration (IOM) report, there were over 706,062 migrants representing 44 nationalities in a hundred Libyan municipalities and the numbers continue to rise. The 2022–2023 Pakistani economic crisis hampered Pakistan's ability to import essential food products, and forced Pakistani people to seek opportunities abroad. The IOM declared the Northern Africa to Italy sea route for migrants and refugees seeking to get to Europe as the deadliest on earth, which has recorded 21,000 deaths since 2014. On 26 February 2023, at least 94 people died when a wooden boat from İzmir, Turkey, sank off Cutro in Southern Italy in the deadliest Mediterranean maritime incident of 2023 up to that point. With the election of the center-right New Democracy party leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis as prime minister in 2019 the country took a "harder line" against the tens of thousands of asylum seekers in Greeceoften Syrian war refugees. In the 2021 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe González Morales defined pushbacks as "measures, actions or policies effectively resulting in the removal of migrants, individually or in groups, without an individualized assessment in line with human rights obligations and due process guarantees. According to a 19 July 2023 article by the German public broadcaster, Deutsche Welle (DW), pushbacks had "become so so systematic, they are de facto policy." A July 2023 BBC article about the deadly Pylos shipwreck said that there was an increase in international attention to pushbacks in Greece following the New York Times 19 May release of video footage taken on Lesbos, Greece, where 12 asylum seekers, including an infant, were forced into a van, taken by speedboat to a HCG vessel, transferred to an inflatable raft in the Aegean Sea, then abandoned at sea under the hot sun. A BBC article from June 2024 alleges that the Greek coastguard has, on occasion, purposefully forced people out of territorial waters, even after individuals have reached the Greek islands. Over the course of 2020 to 2023, 15 incidences resulting in 43 deaths occurred. Migrants alleged that the coastguard physically threw them overboard. ==Timeline==

The migrant boat, Adriana The Italy-bound "rusted, aging", overloaded migrant boat was a fishing trawler, that was estimated to be around long. The Greek newspaper, Kathimerini, had reported on 9 June that smugglers had to convince apprehensive migrants to get on board a boat they thought was incapable of making "the more-than-five-hundred-nautical-mile journey" with hundreds of passengers. According to one estimate the boat had the capacity to carry at most 400 people, but could have been carrying up to 750 people including men, women, and children. Aerial photos showing the boat's overladen upper and lower decks were taken by the HCG hours before the boat capsized. Initially, the IOM estimated that around 400 were aboard. Ioannis Zafiropoulos, the deputy mayor of the Greek port city of Kalamata, stated that there were over 500. No one on board had a life jacket. According to the Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), this was the first public announcement of the fishing boat's distress. The HCG said that Frontex aircraft and two merchant ships detected the vessel approaching north at high speeds, prompting the dispatch of more aircraft and vessels. Offers for aid were made to the ship but were refused according to the HCG. The Coast Guard claimed in official statements that the boat and its passengers had refused assistance because its destination was Italy, and so its boats had hung back. The Greek coastguard did not comment on the leaked conversations. Survivors have also stated that during their ensuing interrogations they were advised by interrogators not to discuss the boat having been towed, and that reports from individual interrogations reading word-for-word identically would suggest that their testimonies were altered. The ship sank around off the coast of Pylos, Messenia, in the Peloponnese, The HCG later stated that the onboard camera recording system was not working, and that telephone data from critical moments in the operation was not recorded. The survivors were bussed from Kalamata port to the Reception and Identification Center (RIC) in Malakasa. == Victims ==

By 18 June, officials acknowledged that over 500 people were presumed dead. Pakistan's Interior Minister, Rana Sanaullah, said that there were at least 350 Pakistani victims on the overloaded vessel. Of the thirty people from the small city of Kotli, only two survived. ==Judicial proceedings==

Against trafficking suspects By the evening of 16 June the Greek authorities had arrested nine suspects, all men of Egyptian descent, believed to have been responsible for the people-smuggling operation. About 20 mobile phones that had been confiscated by the Greek Coast Guard were surrendered to the court in late July. The crew of the Coast Guard ship provided testimony to the Piraeus Naval Court. Additionally, Pakistani authorities arrested 10 suspected traffickers. Against the HCG A lawsuit on behalf of 40 survivors was filed at the Naval Court of Piraeus in September 2023 alleging that Greek authorities failed to protect the lives of those on board. On 26 May 2025, 17 coastguards including the captain of the HCG vessel ΠΠΛΣ-920 were charged with various offences related to the sinking and deaths. ==Investigations==

On 16 June 2023 the IOM and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, welcomed the investigation that was ordered in Greece and called for preventive action. On 3 August, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch stressed the "need for an effective, independent, and impartial investigation". In a 28 July 2023 letter addressed to Mitsotakis, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights said that Greece has a "legal obligation to conduct effective investigations into the Pylos shipwreck", which includes fact-finding and the punishment of the persons responsible for hundreds of deaths. This also includes ensuring that the "remains of deceased migrants are located, respected, identified, and buried." According to investigations completed by the BBC and News 24/7, contradicting the Greek coastguard's account of the incident, the boat had not moved for at least seven hours before sinking. A New York Times investigation found that the authorities watched and listened for 13 hours as the boat lost power and drifted aimlessly. examined court documents, sources from the coastguards, as well as survivors' interviews and found evidence contradicting the HCG's original reports. They said that the Greek coastguard is responsible for the sinking. An investigation by the BBC alleged that the coastguard pressured the survivors of the wreck to frame the Egyptians as the smugglers. This was corroborated by a joint investigation by Lighthouse Reports and other news organisations based on testimonies from 17 survivors and sources from Frontex. A joint investigation by Lighthouse Reports, Der Spiegel, SIRAJ, El País and Reporters United has revealed that a Libyan network with ties to Khalifa Haftar, was responsible for the smuggling. == Reactions ==

Protests in Greece On 15 July, thousands protested the European Union's migration policies with protesters converging in Athens and Thessaloniki. Protesters in Kalamata demonstrated near the migrant facilities, with one banner reading: "Crocodile tears! No to the EU's pact on migration". On 18 July, the Greek Archaeological Society hosted an event in which, among other issues, the sinking was discussed, with the Greek government responding by evicting the society from its headquarters. Reaction of Greek government and opposition Ioannis Sarmas who served in the role of caretaker prime minister for several weeks in 2023 following his appointment 25 May 2023 by President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, announced three days of national mourning. The opposition leader, Alexis Tsipras, said he had visited Kalamata port and spoken with survivors who said they had "called for help". He asked: "What sort of protocol does not call for the rescue... of an overloaded boat about to sink?" Tsipras said European migration policy "turns the Mediterranean, our seas, into watery graves". Comparisons with response to the Titan submersible implosion Former US president Barack Obama contrasted the way in which the public turned a "blind eye" to the 14 June Adriana migrant boat tragedywhich received little media attentionwith the "obsessive", "minute-by-minute", "twenty-four hour" coverage of the 18 June OceanGate Titan submersible implosion, in which five tourists in the submersible died in their failed attempt to visit the wreckage of the Titanic. Survivors of the Adriana wreck requested that the ship be raised and the bodies recovered but were told this would be too difficult and the waters too deep. The survivors contrasted the unwillingness of the authorities with the vast amount of money and resources spent in locating and ultimately recovering the remains of the Titan submersible. The Guardian, The Conversation, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, UNCHR Greece and Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) • Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, sent a letter on 19 July 2023 to the Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis stressing that Greece has a legal obligation to conduct effective investigations into the Pylos shipwreck, which resulted in the death of more than 80 persons with many hundreds still missing, to establish the facts and, where appropriate, to lead to the punishment of those responsible. The Commissioner expresses concern about reports of pressure having been exercised on survivors and about allegations of irregularities in the collection of evidence and testimonies, which may have led to a minimisation of the focus on certain actors in this tragedy, including the Greek Coast Guard. ==See also==