An undetermined amount of people numbering in the hundreds remained missing and were likely killed when the migrant vessel sank earlier this week. 

"We don’t have all information yet on what has happened but it seems like this is the worst ever tragedy we’ve seen in the Mediterranean," EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson told a press conference in Brussels on Friday.

A photo shows the boat carrying migrants before it sank, in Kalamata, Greece on June 15, 2023. Rescued immigrants of a shipwreck after a boat carrying dozens of migrants sank in international waters of Ionian Sea, sit inside a warehouse. Greece has declared three days of mourning, the interim prime minister's office said on June 14, over a migrant boat sinking in the Ionian Sea feared to have claimed hundreds of lives. The Greek coastguard has so far recovered 79 bodies and rescued over 100, but survivors are claiming that up to 750 people were on board. The death toll from the sinking of a fishing boat crammed with migrants off the coast of southwestern Greece rose to 79, local media reported on Wednesday.

The migrant boat was traveling from Tobruk, Libya, to Italy when it capsized in the ocean off the coast of Greece. 

Such a massive loss of life has sparked outrage in Europe over the ongoing migrant crisis as foreign nationals continue to take extremely dangerous voyages to the continent.

Johanssan decried the overpacked boat organized by "smugglers."