The sinking of the Adriana—one of the worst shipwrecks in the Mediterranean’s history—comes amid renewed anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe.
Early on Tuesday, Europe’sborder agency spotted the Adriana in international waters, at a location in the Greek Coast Guard’s search-and-rescue territory. A Greek merchant vessel approached the boat, reportedly at the request of the Coast Guard, and its crew began tossing food and water to passengers on the deck, who scrambled to collect the supplies. “Think of so many people fighting over a glass of water,” a survivor later told. “The engine was running, but we were lost.
Publicly, the Coast Guard said that it did not intervene because the migrants had asked them not to, and because the boat appeared to be on a steady course to Italy. This past weekend, cast doubt on the official story. According to the BBC, the Adriana barely moved for some seven hours, indicating that it was in distress—it reportedly lost engine power—then capsized at around 2 “You can’t intervene in international waters against a boat that is not engaged in smuggling or some other crime,” a Greek Coast Guard spokesperson said on national television, though it was not clear why smuggling people was not considered a crime or, indeed, smuggling.
The captain of a Mexican superyacht that joined the rescue said that the Coast Guard “did all they could.” But many feel that the agency’s actions should be scrutinized. In May, theincluding video it had obtained that appeared to confirm reports that the Coast Guard has been involved in what are known as “pushbacks.
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