The UN migration body has claimed that more than 500 people are still missing, 72 hours after launching a massive search for a shipwreck packed off Greece’s southern coast on Wednesday.
A network of alarm phones from activists running a hotline for distressed migrant boats said they had been in touch with people they believed were on the same ship and who were desperate for help. The alarm phone said passengers reported that the captain had left her on a small boat before the ship sank.
What happened?
Greek coast guard, navy and merchant ships and aircraft launched an extensive search and rescue operation early Wednesday after an overcrowded fishing boat capsized and sank some 75 kilometers southwest of the southern Peloponnese peninsula. So far 79 bodies have been recovered and 104 people have been rescued. It was not clear how many were missing, but some initial reports suggested there could be hundreds aboard. If confirmed, this debris could be the deadliest so far this year.
massive search operation
Patrol boats and a helicopter spent a third day combing the area of the Mediterranean Sea where the UN migration agency said it could be the second deadliest migrant shipwreck ever recorded. The deadliest occurred when a ship capsized off the coast of Libya on its way to Italy in April 2015, killing an estimated 1,100 people.
Greek Coast Guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou said both the coast guard and private vessels repeatedly offered to help the vessel by radio and loudspeaker while it was in international waters, also heading from Libya to Italy, but He was rejected.
Patrol boats and a helicopter spent a third day combing the area of the Mediterranean Sea where the UN migration agency said it could be the second deadliest migrant shipwreck ever recorded. The deadliest occurred when a ship capsized off the coast of Libya on its way to Italy in April 2015, killing an estimated 1,100 people.
Greece has offered to help: official
Greek Coast Guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou said both the coast guard and private vessels repeatedly offered to help the vessel by radio and loudspeaker while it was in international waters, also heading from Libya to Italy, but He was rejected. Alexi reasoned that any attempt to pull the overcrowded trawler or move hundreds of reluctant people to nearby ships would have been too dangerous.
“You will have disturbances, and people will rise – which unfortunately happened in the end,” Alexiou told state-run ERT TV. “You must have caused the accident.”
Alexiou also said that, after accepting food from one merchant ship, the trawler’s passengers rejected the rope that brought more from another merchant ship “because they thought the whole process was a way for us to take them to Greece”. “
Greek authorities sent the first ship, the tanker Lucky Sailor, to deliver food and water to the migrants. The company managing the tanker said on Friday that those on board were “very hesitant to receive any sort of assistance, and any attempts to approach the boat began to turn away.” Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Ltd said in a statement that those aboard the trawler were eventually persuaded to accept the supplies.
What does the organization of the United Nations say?
Flavio Di Giacomo, of the UN migration agency IOM’s Mediterranean office, tweeted that all migrant boats should be considered dangerous and rescued immediately because “even when they don’t appear to have a problem, they are just a few”. Can sink in minutes.”
Rescue teams pulled 104 survivors from the water and later recovered 78 bodies but there was no trace of them since late Wednesday night. The Greek Coast Guard said the search and rescue operation would continue after the standard 72 hours.
The United Nations’ migration and refugee agencies issued a joint statement calling timely maritime search and rescue “a legal and humanitarian imperative” and calling for “immediate and decisive action to prevent further deaths at sea”.
A group of non-governmental organisations, including Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders, said the EU should “stop looking solely as a solution” to trafficking networks and set up state-led search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.
“The Greek government had specific responsibilities towards each passenger on the ship, which was clearly in peril,” said Adriana Tidona of Amnesty International. “This is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions, especially because it was entirely preventable.”
(with inputs from agencies)
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