Worldwide, 12 persons lost their lives in maritime accidents involving ships registered in European Union member countries in 2023, down from 30 in 2022, the European Commission said in a recently published report.
During the period 2019-2023, the number of persons who lost their lives in maritime accidents involving EU-registered ships fluctuated year-on-year.
After reaching a peak in 2019 with 40 fatalities, a sharp fall followed in 2020, where the number of fatalities were almost divided by two (21 fatalities). This may be explained by the Covid-19 pandemic and the slowdown in maritime activities.
In 2021, the number of fatalities slightly increased to 25, followed by another slight increase to 30, in 2022. In 2023, the number of fatalities fell to 12, a 60 per cent decrease compared with 2022. On average, over the period 2019-2023, there were 25.6 fatalities per year in such accidents.
Out of the 12 fatalities in accidents involving EU-registered vessels in 2023, 10 occurred in EU seas. In 2023, seven persons were killed in the Mediterranean Sea, accounting for 58.3 per cent of the total death toll from such accidents.
Two people were killed in the North Sea and one in the Atlantic Ocean, representing 16.7 per cent and 8.3 per cent, respectively. No fatalities were recorded in the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the English Channel.
The two remaining fatalities were caused by accidents involving EU-registered ships in other regions of the world, corresponding to a share of 16.7 per cent.
The number of accidents leading to loss of lives are relatively few among EU-registered ships. Hence, even small fluctuations in the number of people killed in accidents involving different types of vessels can bring about substantial fluctuations in the percentages of deaths by ship type.
In 2023, five persons lost their lives in accidents involving EU-registered cargo ships, corresponding to almost half (41.7 per cent) of the total. This was way lower than between 2019 and 2021, where 15 or 16 fatalities were registered.
Only one fatality was registered in accidents involving passenger ships in 2023, a 92.9 per cent decrease compared with 2022 when 14 fatalities were recorded. No fatalities were registered in this category in 2020.
When it comes to accidents involving fishing vessels, there was only one fatality in 2023. This is in stark contrast to the average of four deaths per year that occurred between 2019 and 2023 in this category.
The number of fatalities in accidents involving a service ship remained stable in 2023, with three persons losing their lives. This is consistent with the figures from 2021 and 2022, where four and three persons were killed, respectively.
In the remaining two ship categories, one person was killed in an accident involving a recreational craft, down from three in 2022, while no fatalities were registered in any accident involving an inland waterway vessel, where the only fatality over the last five years occurred in 2021. One fatality was also registered in an accident involving an unknown type of ship.
Between 2019 and 2023, there were 15 passenger fatalities in EU-registered ship accidents, with 13 occurring in 2022, making up nearly 50 per cent of the total fatalities that year.
The number of crew members killed in accidents decreased from 37 in 2019 to 21 in 2020, accounting for 100 per cent of the persons killed that year, before stabilising at 23 in 2021. A sharp fall to 14 was registered in 2022 and 10 in 2023 (83.3 per cent of total deaths).
In the "other persons" category, which covers service personnel, dock workers, pilots, inspectors, etc., eight persons accidentally lost their lives over the period 2019-2023. Three persons in this category were killed in 2019, two in 2021, and three in 2022, while no fatalities were registered in 2020 and 2023.