Source: Alarm Phone
14:17 CEST on June 13, 2023: Alarm Phone received the first call from the Adriana, an overcrowded boat in distress carrying about 750 people that departed from Libya towards Europe. In the hours that followed, our volunteers alerted competent authorities and attempted several times to reach the people in distress, some times successfully and others not. It became evident that the boat was unstable and that the people needed rescue urgently.
For us, it was also evident that the past actions of the Hellenic Coast Guard, which we witnessed multiple times in that region, could have lethal consequences for such an overloaded boat. To our great horror, the crime we feared could happen, took place in the early morning hours of June 14, 2023. The boat capsized. Only 104 of the estimated 750 people on board survived. More than 600 people were killed that night.
In a blatant attempt to absolve themselves of any responsibility, the Hellenic Coast Guard – with the support of the Greek government – staged false accusations against 9 Egyptian survivors for ‘smuggling’ and causing the shipwreck. But similar to other recent state crimes in Greece, it was due to the tireless work of the survivors, the families of the disappeared, lawyers, journalists and civil society that the false narrative crumbled.
In December 2024, investigative journalists revealed that Egyptian authorities had informed their Greek counterparts that the nine survivors of the Pylos shipwreck were not members of the smuggling network. Yet, the nine Egyptian men stayed behind bars for a year.
In February 2025, the Greek account of the deadly shipwreck was challenged by leaked phone recordings, in which an “unnamed man speaking from inside a Greek rescue coordination centre is heard instructing the captain of the migrant boat to tell an approaching ship that those onboard do not want to reach Greece”.
In May 2025, the lawyers representing the survivors and victims of the shipwreck were informed of the criminal prosecution and referral to main investigation on felony charges against 17 members of the Hellenic Coast Guard, including senior officers of its leadership.
On the 28th of February 2025, two years since another state crime that claimed 57 lives when two trains crashed in Tempi, Greece, the families of the Pylos victims sent a message of solidarity to the families of the Tempi victims:
A salutation to the relatives of the victims of Tempi for the rallies on 28 February
Dear relatives of the 57 people, students and workers who were taken from you when the trains collided in Greece on 28 February, WE ARE WITH YOU!
We share the pain in our souls and hearts because our loved ones on the boat Adriana in Pylos were also lost. Our tears have not stopped for two years now. We feel you as our own people.
We are mothers, brothers and sisters, children of the 750 migrants who put their dreams of a better life on a ship that sank in the Mediterranean. The mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of the victims from Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, Palestine join you in mourning on 28 February.
We also join our voices with you for justice, to punish the murderers. For us to finally get an answer: Where are our people, who are those lying to us?
Don’t all people’s lives count? Don’t the lives of migrants count? Our condolences to all of you. And to the family of Mia Mohammad Idris, the migrant worker from Bangladesh who died in the Tempi train. All over the planet they are spreading fear, hatred. Our governments want us to work as slaves in Europe and America but they persecute us at the borders, lock us up in camps and the far right that is rising is murdering people in the streets.
That’s why we will also stand against injustice, wars, racism worldwide and on March 22 we will mobilize everywhere. Thank you for your support. We share the same pain.
Let’s make our tears a sea of anger at the injustice that is killing our children.
Strength and vindication for your struggle.
Two years later, we are still full of grief and let our tears join the sea of anger at the injustice that continues to kill people. Alarm Phone stands together with a growing number of people who call for justice and are mobilising throughout Greece and beyond to commemorate those who forcibly disappeared on board the Adriana.
We do not forget! We do not forgive!
United in solidarity – Freedom of movement and equal rights for all!
