We remember the eight lives lost on 3 April on the northern coast of Lesvos: seven migrants drowned, and a child is still missing. We hold in our thoughts the father who not only lost his wife and daughter that day, but was falsely accused by the Hellenic Coast Guard of causing the shipwreck that killed them and imprisoned for a tragedy they had provoked themselves.
We speak these words not just in mourning, but in anger. Not only in sorrow, but in solidarity.
We refuse to accept a world where people fleeing violence are met with violence, or where those seeking refuge are hunted, blamed, and buried at sea.
May justice one day reach even these waters. May those who died be remembered with dignity. May those who survive not be silenced or scapegoated.
And may this not happen again — though we know it will, unless we change.
If there’s any justice beyond us, may it take root among us, so that no more boats are broken by the hands meant to save them, and so that the sea is no longer a grave but a passage to life.
Never again.
