By Ec Border deaths News Publications Topics Violations at the borders 29 October 2024

Rezwana’s story: Surviving a shipwreck in Greece

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On 28 October 2015, one of the largest shipwrecks in Greece’s history occurred. A boat carrying hundreds of passengers, including many women, children, and even infants, sank off the northern coast of Lesvos. The final toll recorded at least 80 deaths, with many women and at least 20 children among the victims, while 274 people were rescued. The exact number of missing persons – those presumed dead but never found – remains unknown, as is often the case with overcrowded refugee boats.

“It was like a war zone. Everyone was in panic.”

Natassa Strachini

lawyer and coordinator at RSA

In the immediate aftermath of the shipwreck, the residents of Lesvos, civil society, and local authorities mobilised to rescue and care for the survivors. The island was engulfed in mourning, as bodies continued to wash ashore for weeks. Among those on the ill-fated boat was 13-year-old Rezwana, who had fled Afghanistan with her family. She was travelling with her parents and three siblings, but tragically, Rezwana was the only one in her family to survive.

Today, at 22 years old, Rezwana lives in Greece. She has completed her studies as a make-up artist and has been working for the past few years as a cultural mediator with RSA. To mark the 9th anniversary of the shipwreck, we are releasing a video in collaboration with the PRO ASYL Foundation, in which Rezwana shares her story – one that reflects the harsh reality of European asylum and migration policies.

"Until I die, this will be my nightmare.
The sea, the Aegean Sea."

Rezwana

shipwreck survivor

A major turning point for Rezwana was the identification of three of her family members and their graves in the refugee cemetery in Kara Tepe, Mytilene, with the help of RSA. The process of collecting and identifying DNA, notifying relatives, and locating the burial sites of those lost in refugee shipwrecks remains a systematic and structural issue in Greece. This responsibility often falls to organisations and citizens in solidarity, in the absence of any intervention by the Greek authorities. A similar problem emerged after the recent shipwreck off Pylos on 14 June 2023, where, nearly a year and a half later, 17 victims remain unburied, and 8 of them are still unidentified.

"I feel good when I visit their graves.
At least I have somewhere to go."

Rezwana

shipwreck survivor

Rezwana’s testimony in the video is deeply personal and significant, while Natassa Strachini, lawyer and coordinator at RSA, and Efi Latsoudi, social worker at RSA and activist, provide further context to her story. Sadly, however, her tragic experience is far from unique. The challenges Rezwana faced are the same ones endured by hundreds of shipwreck victims, who suffer as a result of increasingly cruel and inhumane Greek and European policies. Meanwhile, shipwrecks – and deaths – continue to be counted almost daily.

In Greece, over the past month alone, at least 12 dead bodies have been recovered from five separate shipwrecks, not including the missing: four women, including a minor, in Samos (23/9), a young woman in Kos (27/9), four people – two women and two children – in Kos (15/10), a man in Gavdos (16/10), and two people – a man and a woman – in Samos (21/10).

We cannot allow death in avoidable shipwrecks to become normalised. Ensuring safe and legal pathways for people seeking asylum must be made a priority in European policy. Rezwana, through her daily struggle, along with the survivors of shipwrecks, but also the dead, the missing, and their families, all demand justice and reparation. It is our collective responsibility to support them in this fight and to call for an end to the atrocities at the borders.

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