A Greek Tragedy: One Day, A Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis
Jeanne Carstensen. One Signal, $28.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-6680-8314-7
Journalist Carstensen debuts with a riveting blow-by-blow account of the Oct. 28, 2015, sinking of a boat full of refugees near the Greek island of Lesbos. Nearly 300 passengers were rescued after the overcrowded boat carrying them from Turkey capsized in the Aegean, while several dozen drowned—the single largest loss of life of the Mediterranean refugee crisis that year. Carstensen creates a vivid panorama of the event that also serves as a kaleidoscopic look at the conveyor belt–like system that turned the Mediterranean into a mass “graveyard” over the course of the 2010s. She includes fascinating perspectives from the residents of Turkish seaside towns where the financial incentives for people smuggling are so high that almost everyone is involved (“Locals who didn’t take part in this business were seen as imbeciles,” one interviewee explains), Greek rescue workers who recall arriving at a hellish scene (one recounts how a fellow deckhand spiraled into a panic attack as “cries for help rang out at them from every direction”), and a multinational group of survivors whose harrowing recollections bring vivid life, both terrible and sweet, back to the nameless dead (playful children roughhousing with their parents before the wreck; a life-jacketed man bobbing in the water during the aftermath, attempting, but failing for some time, to drown himself after losing his children). It’s a crushing account of a senseless tragedy. (Mar.)
Correction: A previous version of this review incorrectly stated that more than 200 passengers drowned and several dozen were rescued.
Details
Reviewed on: 01/30/2025
Genre: Nonfiction
Compact Disc - 978-1-6681-2426-0
Downloadable Audio - 978-1-6681-2424-6