1000 Lives, 0 Names:
The Border Graves Investigation
How the EU is failing migrants' last rights
What happens to those who die in their attempts to reach the European Union? How are their lives marked, how can their families honor them? How do governments recognize their existence and their basic rights as human beings?
Read the stories
Missing data, missing souls in Italy
From 2013 to the present, Refaat has searched everywhere for their children. For ten years he has been traveling, asking, and searching. He has even appeared on TV hoping one day to be reunited with them. But to this day he still does not know if his children were saved or if they are two of the 268 victims of the October 11, 2013 shipwreck, one of the worst Mediterranean disasters in the last three decades.
Widowed by Europe’s borders
It was already dark when Samrin was left alone in the woods. He had no backpack, sleeping bag, or food. His phone was running out of battery. The next morning, Samrin came online briefly to send Sanooja a final message on WhatsApp: “No water, I think I’ll die. Trangam, I love you.”
Unmarked monuments of EU’s shame in Croatia and Bosnia
“My wish is that even 100 years from now these graves stand as monuments of the EU’s shame. Because it was not the river that killed these people, but the EU border regime.”
Counting the invisible victims of Spain’s EU borders
No one ever comes to visit, but on days when there are funerals here and flowers are about to be thrown out, I place them on the tombs containing the unknown migrants,” he explains. “In some of the older graves, you have the remains of up to five or six migrants together, each placed in separate sacks within the same niche to save space.”
The unidentified: Unmarked refugee graves on the Greek borders
Latsoudi recalls something a refugee had mentioned to her in 2015: ‘The worst thing that can happen to us is to die somewhere far away and have no one at our funeral’.
About The Border Graves Investigation:
Our cross-border team confirmed 1,015 unmarked graves of migrants in 65 cemeteries buried over the last 10 years across Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta, Poland, Lithuania, France, and Croatia. We visited over half of them.
Each unmarked grave represents a person who lost their life en route to Europe, and a fate that remains painfully unknown to their loved ones.
In 2021, the European Parliament passed a resolution recognizing the need for a “coordinated European approach” for “prompt and effective identification processes” for bodies found on EU borders. Yet last year, the Council of Europe called this area a “legislative void.”
In the absence of official data from European and national governments, the Border Graves Investigation counted 2,162 unidentified deaths of migrants across eight countries in Europe from 2014-2023.
Our cross-border team conducted over 60 interviews in six languages. We spoke with families of the missing and deceased, whose loved ones left for Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Algeria, and Sri Lanka. They spoke about the institutional and bureaucratic hurdles of searching for, and if found, burying a body.
One mother compared the unresolved grief to an “open wound,” and an uncle said it was like “dying every day.”
Credits:
The Border Graves Investigation Team
Tina Xu is a multimedia journalist and filmmaker working at the intersection of migration, mental health, socially engaged arts, and civil society. Her stories often interrogate the three-way street between people, policy, and power. (Project Manager)
Gabriela Ramirez is an award-winning multimedia journalist specializing in migration, human rights, ocean conservation, and climate issues, always through a gender-focused lens. Currently serving as the Multimedia & Engagement Editor at Unbias The News. (Poland and Lithuania)
Barbara Matejčić is a Croatian award-winning freelance journalist, non-fiction writer and audio producer focused on social affairs and human rights. (Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia)
Gabriele Cruciata is a Rome-based award-winning journalist specializing in podcasts and investigative and narrative journalism. He also works as a fixer, producer, journalism. (Italy)
Eoghan Gilmartin is a Spain-based freelance journalist specializing in news, politics and migration. His work has appeared in Jacobin Magazine, The Guardian, Tribune and Open Democracy. (Spain)
Danai Maragoudaki is a Greek journalist based in Athens. She works for independent media outlet Solomon and is a member of their investigative team. Her reporting focuses on transparency, finance, and digital threats. (Greece)
Leah Pattem is a Spain-based journalist and photographer specializing in politics, migration and community stories. Leah is also the founder and editor of popular local media platform Madrid No Frills. (Spain)
Daphne Tolis is an award-winning documentary producer/filmmaker and multimedia journalist based in Athens. She has produced and hosted timely documentaries for VICE Greece and has been working as a freelance producer and journalist for BBC, NPR, and others. (Greece)
Unbias The News Team
Tina Lee, Editor-in-Chief
Gabriela Ramirez, Multimedia Editor
Antoine Bouraly, Illustrator
The Border Graves Investigation was made in collaboration with The Guardian and Süddeutsche Zeitung. This investigation was supported by Investigative Journalism for Europe and Journalismfund Europe. Additional support by Limelight Foundation.
