I went to investigate a fatal sinking in the Mediterranean – what I found was much grimmer

Almost a year ago today, in the same week that Tom Hanks and Barack Obama spent their family holiday together in Greece, a fishing trawler called the Adriana sank in the Mediterranean Sea. More than 600 men, women and children seeking a better life in Europe drowned in the idyllic crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea, where so many of us wish to swim.

In the days that followed, it emerged that Greek military units had been following the trawler for many hours and EU agents knew that the boat was in crisis (and that people on board were beginning to die). However, it was not until after the Adriana had fallen.

Unanswered questions began to arise and as a BBC journalist and director I began to investigate. Why did the boat capsize spontaneously in glassy waters after five days at sea? How could a patrol boat of the Greek Coast Guard be present when the Adriana What could be the true story, considering that the accounts of many survivors contradict the official reports? When I began to investigate the sinking of the AdrianaI fell down a rabbit hole. The deeper I fell, the more disturbing and compelling the evidence became.

I landed on the Greek island of Samos in early December 2023. High on the beautiful rugged coastal hills, small herds of goats graze, their bells tinkling in discordant harmony. Here, Romy van Baarsen, a Dutch journalist, shows me the photos she took—of people’s abandoned clothing, a discarded life jacket, and a child’s notebook—before she was stopped by Greek agents who surrounded her and demanded that she delete a video she had just recorded. Her curiosity piqued, she began to investigate rumors of illegal forced returns, which the Greek authorities consistently deny but which have been documented by human rights organizations such as MSF and Human Rights Watch.

Romy told me she decided to use the dating app Tinder to find someone who was so proud of their work that they would be willing to share their secrets. She showed me the Tinder profile of a masked commando, which showed him posing in standard and civilian uniforms on Greek coast guard vessels. Romy secretly recorded their conversations. The masked commando admitted they use ropes to herd migrants back to Turkey and told her these orders came from the very top.

I had met Ibrahim, a French-speaking man born in Cameroon, a few days earlier. He works in the kitchen of a five-star hotel in a luxury resort where the rich and famous vacation.

Together we travelled to Samos, where he showed me the area of ​​Greek soil where he first landed. There, he said, masked men began chasing his group of migrants, shooting at them as they ran away. He played an audio recording of the moment, and then a gunshot rang out. Ibrahim showed me photographs of two men he had been caught with, and told me they had been beaten, strip-searched and forced onto a coast guard boat. He described how they were taken out to sea and thrown overboard one by one. He said he saw the man in front of him plead, “I don’t want to die,” and described how the coast guard watched as the man in front of them drowned. Ibrahim was thrown in next, but managed to reach shore. “An incredible strength animated me. I survived. I bear witness to the oppressed,” he said. The bodies of the other two men were later found on the Turkish coast and officially identified.

In the fall of 2023, I had traveled to Vienna to meet Fayad Mulla, a video journalist who had recently left Greece. He too had heard stories of masked men, abductions and kidnappings. He continued to investigate until he filmed what he believed to be an illegal forced return. He showed me his footage, shot from a hilltop, showing men in balaclavas unloading a group of migrants: women and children, including babies, being taken from an unmarked van, pushed onto a speedboat and carried down, then lifted onto an official Greek Coast Guard boat, where they are then abandoned at sea on a motorless dinghy.

Fayad told me that the EU’s best-funded agency, Frontex, which is responsible for monitoring the EU’s external borders, co-financed the Greek coast guard boat that day: it paid the men’s salaries and the fuel for the boat, which removed women and children from land and then abandoned them at sea. An official Greek investigation is still ongoing and Greek authorities deny that the incident is part of a wider policy.

The deeper I fell down the rabbit hole, the more I found it hard to believe the evidence I had gathered. Could it really be that armed, masked men were patrolling the Mediterranean and towing boats away from the Greek coast? Is it possible that some migrants who reached the country were hunted down before they could officially register and then forced back out to sea? Could it be that this operation was partly funded by EU budgets?

In Amsterdam I met two survivors of the Adrianaboth good swimmers who managed to stay afloat long enough to be rescued. Mo told me why the boat sank and so many people died. “The Greek coast guard tied us up with ropes. They sank us. It was an unforgivable crime,” he said. Mo stared right at me as he showed a photo of him and three friends, all of whom drowned when the boat sank.

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A year later, Abdel still hasn’t cried. He tells me: “Maybe I’m still in shock. I just can’t believe it.” The Mediterranean has become the deadliest migration route in the world. According to the International Organization for Migration, nearly 2,500 people will die or go missing in 2023.

Greek authorities told the BBC that they “firmly reject all allegations of illegal activities and their operational practices strictly comply with the applicable international and national legal framework.”

On the anniversary of the shipwreck, Amnesty International researcher Adriana Tidona called for a full investigation into the events of that day.

“Hundreds of families are in limbo, waiting for the truth about the fate of their loved ones. The Greek authorities must move forward with their investigations into the possible liability of the coast guard for this incident in order to finally bring justice and closure to all those affected,” she said.

‘“Dead Calm: Killing in the Med?” airs tonight at 9pm on BBC2.