Today marks 19 years since the tragedy of January 9, 2004, when 28 Albanians drowned in the waters of the Ionian Sea.

They were mostly young people from the Shkodra district, aged between 15 and 33 years old.

They had given 1,500 euros to the boat drivers in hopes that the crossing to the other side of the sea would fix their lives, but most of them didn’t know that they were actually paying for their death.

18 men and 3 women were found dead on the morning of January 10 by a NATO helicopter belonging to the Italian army. Eight people went missing, and the other eleven were able to escape, including the boatmen.