User:Knightoftheswords281/sandbox/2023 Peloponnese migrant boat disaster

On June 14, 2023, a fishing boat carrying hundreds of migrants sunk in the Ionian sea.

Background
In 2011, Libya broke into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that killed the country's longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi initiated a series of civil wars and crises in the country. The mass instability in Libya, as well as in neighboring countries, paved the way for a bustling human trafficking business that would funnel migrants ands refugees across the Mediterranean into Europe. Libya became one of the primary stopping points for people smuggling operations to Europe.

The route from Libya to Italy across the central Mediterranean has been declared the deadliest on Earth by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), who has recorded 21,000 deaths since 2014. Human smugglers crowd migrants into unseaworthy vessels, often in locked holds for days long journeys. They typically head for Italy, which is right across the sea from Libya, separated by the strait of Sicily, and much closer to the western European countries desired by migrants than Greece.

Libyan authorities have taken increasingly combative action to tackle people smuggling from the country. Earlier in June, a major crackdown on migrants occured, with activists claiming that several thousand were detained; many were Egyptians who were later deported through the Libyan-Egyptian border. In the western part of the country, several migrant hubs in the capital of Tripoli and in neighboring cities have been subject to raids, with at least 1,800 migrants being detained and placed in government detention centers. The European Union has also begun to clamp down on migration into its borders.

In response, people smugglers have been taking increasingly larger vessels into the Mediterranean to evade local coast guard patrols. From January of March of 2023, the number of migrants that had arrived in Europe from the Mediterranean was 36,000; double that that did in 2022 and the highest number since the 2015 European migrant crisis. This has come naturally with an increased number of fatal accidents en route, with out of the 3,800 people who died in 2022 while along migrant routes in MENA (the highest recorded number since 2017), 3,789 of them being located on sea-based routes in and around the region.

On February 26, 2023, at least 94 people died when a wooden boat from Turkey sank off of Cutro in Southern Italy in the deadliest Mediterranean boat incident of 2023 up to that point.

Incident
The ship, dubbed the Andrianna, had departed from Tobruk, a town in Cyrenaica, Libya, just south of the island of the Aegean island of Crete in Greece on June 10, 2023. The vessel harbored an excessive amount of people, well above its capacity; according to Alarm Phone, a European rescue-support charity who claimed to have received a distress call from the vessel up to 750 people were aboard (though it wasn't clear if that was the same boat that sunk), while the IOM estimated that around 400 were. Ioannis Zafiropoulos, the deputy mayor of the Greek port city of Kalamata, stated that there were over 500. The ship was a fishing boat and was estimated to be around 20 to 30 m long. Almost all migrants aboard heralded from Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Andrianna was destined for Italy.

On June 13, the Italian coast guard alerted Greek authorities and the European Union border protection agency, Frontex, of an oncoming vessel in distress. The Italians in particular informed the Greeks of the peculiar movements of the vessel. The Greek coast guard claimed that afterwards, Frontex aircraft and two merchant ships detected the vessel approaching north at high speeds, prompting te dispatch of more aircraft and vessels. Offers for aid were made to the ship but were denied according to the Greek coast guard.

In the afternoon, one of the merchant ships approached the Andrianna and offered it assistance, but the passengers denied it. Another merchant shape later did the same and received the same response. A Greek coast guard patrol approached the deck of the vessel in the evening, where they confirmed the presence of a large number of migrants. The migrants again refused any aid, stating that they wished to continue to Italy. In all three instances, the migrants did state that they want food and water, which the Greek patrol ship and a Maltase-flagged merchant ship did. The Greek patrol later accompanied the vessel.

At around 1:40 am (EEST) on June 14, the Greek coast guard learned that the Andrianna 's engine had broken down. After receiving a plea for aid, coast guard officers then approached the ship. They stated that they then “saw the boat take a right turn, then a sharp left, and then another right so big that it caused the vessel to capsize.” Around 10 to 15 minutes later, the Andrianna sunk, sending its passengers into the waves of the Ionian. The ship sunk around 50 mi off the coast of Pylos, Messenia, in the Peloponnese, in an area around 13,000 to 17,000 ft deep. The Greek coast guard reported that no one on board was wearing life jackets.

Victims
At least 79 passengers of the Andrianna have been confirmed dead as of June 14, 2023, making it the deadliest shipwreck of 2023 in Greece. The majority of survivors were men, with it being stated by them that the women and children were kept locked in the hold by the smugglers to maintain easier control. Hundreds are feared missing.

Search and rescue operations
Immediately following the sinking, the Greek coast guard and the Greek military initiated a massive search and rescue operation. The operation was complicated by strong winds in the area.