Thinking the Pylos Shipwreck: Europe’s “shield” or Europe’s graveyard
Image: Aegean Guernica, 2015, by Jovcho Savov.
by: Eva Papatzani, Panos Hatziprokopiou, Penny Koutrolikou | National Centre for Social Research, EKKE
The first months of the implementation of the GAPs project in Greece coincided with the Pylos shipwreck. On the 14th June 2023, the flagless vessel named “Adriana” sank off the coast of Pylos, in Southwestern Greece in an attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea and reach Italy. As Eastern Mediterranean sea routes are more tightly controlled, other, more dangerous routes open up in order to avoid arrest and/or deportations and pushbacks. The ship departed from Libya carrying around 750 people, mainly from Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria, as well as Palestine and Afghanistan. It capsized 87 kilometers off the Greek coast, in international waters but, particularly, in the Greek Search and Rescue (SAR) zone. From all its passengers, only 104 people, exclusively men, survived, while the bodies of many, especially of those who found shelter at the bottom of the ship (mainly women and children) will probably never be found.
The Greek authorities were strongly criticized for their inaction and/or delays in taking any action to save the endangered people. In responding to these criticisms the Greek authorities claimed (among others) that the Greek Coast Guard lacked jurisdiction to intervene as the shipwreck took place on international waters and that the people on the vessel did not want to be rescued.
However, in the days following the shipwreck, numerous media reports, extensive investigations by NGOs, and survivors’ testimonies surfaced, all challenging and contradicting the official version of events put forth by Greek authorities, aiming to rationalize their failure to rescue. Emerging evidence revealed that, despite prior alerts from FRONTEX and the NGO Alarm Phone regarding the dangerously overcrowded and unseaworthy vessel, Greek authorities did not respond promptly with a rescue operation. Instead, their actions appeared to have led to the vessel’s capsizing. The Greek authorities’ claims have been challenged on multiple levels, based on survivors’ testimonies, detailed investigations (see for example the Lighthouse report, the timeline and archive by RSA, the joint investigation by the Guardian, ARD, Solomon, and Forensis, among others) and the intervention of many academics working in the field.
When the Greek Coast Guard’s attempt to tow the vessel was revealed, the official account was altered to include this information. Yet, evidence that came to the fore by Lighthouse report shows, among others, that testimonies of those interrogated by the Greek Coast Guard contained identical phrases and narratives, while the Greek authorities pressured survivors to name specific people as smugglers – both suggesting efforts to cover up possible culpability. Towing the vessel is a practice suggesting a possible pushback attempt that in this case ultimately resulted in the tragic shipwreck. The joint investigation by the Guardian, German public broadcaster ARD/NDR/Funk, the Greek investigative outlet Solomon, and Forensis also provided one of the fullest accounts of the incident. Their report illustrated, among others, that the Greek Coast Guard boat was not recording the operation on a video even if it was obliged to do so following a 2021 FRONTEX document; that FRONTEX offered to help Greek authorities three times; that the Greek Coast Guard provided the vessel with directions to Italy; and that it used a rope for towing, an act that appears to have led to the capsize and sinking of the ship.
On their part, focusing on the legal obligations based on international Law of the Sea, Human Rights Law, EU law, and the Smuggling Protocol, more than 350 academics working on the areas of migration, asylum, refugee and human rights law, public international law, the law of the sea and international criminal law signed the Open Letter initiative “Open Letter on the Greece Boat Disaster: Questions of International Law”. As argued in the Letter,
“under the International Law of the Sea and EU law, Greece did not only have the right but also the duty to intervene, assist and rescue those on board irrespective of their status as irregular migrants or smugglers, regardless of whether they asked for or refused assistance, and even though the incident took place on the high seas.
[…] under human rights and refugee law, Greece can be found in violation of the right to life and also possibly the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment and collective expulsion (depending on the establishment of the facts concerning the towing of the vessel). The extraterritorial jurisdiction of Greece with respect to its human rights obligations can be established on the basis of the effective control it exercised over the migrant vessel.
The investigation is currently ongoing, but it can already be assessed that it will fall short of the standards for an effective investigation if it deals inappropriately with issues of jurisdiction, presents flaws that undermine its ability to determine the facts, and does not cover the examination of the criminal responsibility of the Greek Coast Guard.
[…] Failure to abide by its fundamental rights obligations may result in the legal responsibility of Frontex. It should be independently investigated whether Frontex took all reasonably expected steps after its first sighting of the vessel to protect the lives of the passengers. Moreover, any internal investigation needs to consider not only possible wrongdoings by Greece but also by Frontex”.
All the above raise significant concerns as regards the role of the Greek state authorities, but also about the EU mechanisms, and their ability to counter illegal practices that have been repeatedly reported during the last few years (see for example the recent pushback off Lesvos island, brought to the forefront by the New York Times). Indeed, informal and shadowed forced returns and illegal pushbacks are not a new phenomenon in Greece, but have consistently been observed in border regions, whether on land or at sea, but also in mainland areas, and involve both violence and human rights violations. Such ‘deterring’ practices, aiming to prevent border crossings and reduce asylum claims, eventually result in turning the Greek borders - celebrated as “Europe’s Shield” by the EU in early 2020 - into Europe’s mass graveyards.
As mentioned by the Alarm Phone’s report “People on the move know that thousands have been shot at, beaten, and abandoned at sea by these Greek forces. They know that encountering the Hellenic Coast Guard, the Hellenic Police or the Hellenic Border Guards often means violence and suffering. It is due to systematic pushbacks that boats are trying to avoid Greece, navigating much longer routes, and risking lives at sea”. The need for safe legal pathways instead of practices of deterrence is today more than vital. At the same time, such policies should go hand in hand with the termination of the criminalization and mass accusations of migrants as smugglers, the respect to the right to asylum and its expansion instead its current shrinkage trends, as well as with dignified policies and practices of refugee reception and integration in the countries concerned versus the increased securitization and “shielding” of Europe via its borderlands.
Contact:
Eva Papatzani | Ph.D. in Migration Studies and Human Geography, Researcher and Co-Principal Investigator, National Centre for Social Research, EKKE | epapatzani@ekke.gr
Panos Hatziprokopiou | Associate Professor, School of Spatial Planning and Development, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki & National Centre for Social Research, EKKE | pmchatzi@plandevel.auth.gr
Penny Koutrolikou | Associate Professor, School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens & National Centre for Social Research, EKKE | pkoutrolikou@arch.ntua.gr