The Karaburun tragedy of 2004, also known as the 9 January tragedy, was a marine incident that occurred during an attempted sea crossing from northern Albania to Italy by 36 people, including two dinghy operators and the smugglers' leader. They were trying to cross the Strait of Otranto, off the southern coast of Italy, in an inflatable boat, heading towards Brindisi, on the Adriatic coast of Apulia. Twenty-eight people died or were declared lost at sea, and there were only eight survivors. For Albanian emigrants, the tragedy had the second highest mortality rate for such events, after the Otranto tragedy of March 1997, when the Albanian ship Kateri i Rads, smuggling clandestine emigrants, was hit by the Italian warship Sibilla, resulting in the death of 84 people.Unemployment, low income, and difficult living conditions persuaded people to leave Albania, especially in the 1990s. Demanding visa requirements produced great difficulties in obtaining travel visas through foreign embassies, followed by a process involving lengthy, complex, and costly procedures, claimed by some to be humiliating, and these were the main reasons suggested as leading to illegal emigration.

Albania signed its first Readmission Agreement with Italy on 18 November 1997. In August 2002, after making a show of burning some inflatable boats used for people smuggling in the mole of Radhima, the Albanian Prime minister Fatos Nano declared that " we are burning the past and piracy from our coasts. There's no more rubber dinghies and traffickers on the waters of the Republic of Albania." Despite the political reforms and successes of the Albanian government in its efforts to stop illegal emigration, in early 2004 this phenomenon still existed, as evidenced by the Karaburun deaths on 9 January. It was not until some six and a half years later, on 8 November 2010, that the Council of the European Union approved visa-free travel into the Schengen Area for Albanian citizens.

An inflatable boat is a lightweight boat constructed with its sides and bow made of flexible tubes containing pressurised gas. For smaller boats, the floor and hull is often flexible, while for boats longer than 3 metres (9.8 ft), the floor typically consists of three to five rigid plywood or aluminium sheets fixed between the tubes, but not joined rigidly together. Often the transom is rigid, providing a location and structure for mounting an outboard motor.

Some inflatable boats can be disassembled and packed into a small volume, so that they can be easily stored and transported. The boat, when inflated, is kept rigid cross-ways by a foldable removable thwart. This feature makes these boats suitable for liferafts for larger boats or aircraft, and for travel or recreational purposes.