Over 180 dead in one week: SOS MEDITERRANEE demands accountability

More than 180 preventable deaths occurred in the Mediterranean last week, bringing the total death toll to over 1,000 people in 2026 alone, making this the deadliest start to a year on record.

This painful and outrageous reality is the direct result of a decade of European policies aimed at depriving people crossing the Mediterranean of any assistance and rescue assets, deliberately turning a blind eye to their rights and protection. This is what clearly emerges from the tragic events of these past few days, according to Soazic Dupuy, Director of Operations for SOS MEDITERRANEE.

Over the Easter weekend, more than 80 people are feared dead or missing following the capsizing of a wooden boat in the Central Mediterranean on Sunday. This is not an isolated event. In the space of one week alone – from 28 March to 5 April – more than 100 people are estimated to have lost their lives attempting this crossing. Across all Mediterranean routes, the toll over this period may be considerably higher. On April 5, a wooden boat departing from Libya capsized, resulting in the death of around 80 people with 32 survivors rescued by merchant vessels. Days earlier, on April 1, the Italian coast guard recovered 19 bodies and rescued 58 survivors from a rubber boat south of Lampedusa. On 29 March, another shipwreck off Tunisia left 19 people dead and 21 missing, with only 16 survivors. On the Eastern Mediterranean route, 22 people died off Crete on 26 March after six days adrift, and on 1 April, 19 Afghan nationals, including a baby, died off Bodrum, Türkiye.

«These are not tragic inevitabilities. They are the result of deliberate policy choices that have dismantled state-led search and rescue, replaced assistance with deterrence and containment, and shifted responsibility onto actors unable or unwilling to uphold international obligations. The result is a maritime space in which distress is detected but ignored, rescue is possible but not prioritized, and deaths at sea are treated as an acceptable consequence of policy, adds Soazic Dupuy on behalf of SOS MEDITERRANEE.

«This man-made reality », concludes the spokesperson for the civil search and rescue organization, « can be changed: we demand that states comply with their legal duty by restoring a state-led search and rescue mechanism in the Central Mediterranean; the Italian government to end its obstruction of NGO-led SAR by repealing laws that allow arbitrary vessel detentions.

Most importantly, what happens in the Mediterranean must lead to accountability: all cases of possible non-assistance, including the documented events from late March to early April, must be independently investigated. The means to prevent these deaths exist; reversing this trajectory is a matter of political will, legal obligation, and moral responsibility».