2022 / Since 2014, more than 20,000 migrants and refugees have died at sea trying to reach Europe from Africa, most of them fleeing violence, poverty, famine, and political upheaval in their home countries. More than 17,000 of those deaths occurred in the Central Mediterranean, which is described by the UN as the most dangerous migration route in the world. In 2015, for example, 853,000 refugees—the majority from war-torn Syria—landed in Greece. However, more than 3,700 children, women, and men did not survive their attempts in that year alone.

This piece calls attention to the plight of these migrants and refugees, who risk everything they own—including their lives—to seek a better existence for themselves and their families. They often pay smugglers to take them aboard small, unseaworthy boats to cross miles of open ocean with little to no food or water. Migrants who take to the sea know that the odds of reaching the shore safely are not in their favor, and yet they believe that the risks outweigh the dangers of remaining in their home countries. Often, leaving is not a choice, as many are victims of forced displacement, and they could not stay where they were even if they wanted to.