Wilfried Devillers with AFP / Photo credit: GREEK COAST GUARD / HANDOUT / ANADOLU AGENCY / ANADOLU AGENCY VIA AFP
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07:32, June 16, 2023
It is the deadliest shipwreck in recent years in Greece. 78 bodies have been recovered after a migrant boat sank off the coast of Greece that may have killed hundreds two days ago. Since then, rescue operations have continued. And several men, suspected of being smugglers, were arrested by the Greek authorities.
Nine Egyptians arrested
Nine Egyptians suspected of being smugglers have been arrested in Greece. A port source told AFP that among those arrested was the captain of the boat which capsized before sinking, resulting in the death of at least 78 people, according to an official report. According to this source, the fishing boat had left Egypt empty before embarking migrants in Tobruk, a port city in eastern Libya, and had set sail for Italy.
Patrol boats, helicopters and ships continue to inspect the waters
The suspects arrested in Kalamata, the port of the Peloponnese peninsula where the survivors were transported, are suspected of “illegal trafficking” in human beings, according to the Greek agency ANA. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said it “fears that hundreds more people” have drowned “in one of the most devastating tragedies in the Mediterranean in a decade”.
Greek government spokesman Ilias Siakantaris said on Wednesday that unconfirmed reports said there were 750 people on board the trawler. Two patrol boats, a navy frigate, three helicopters and nine other ships continued to survey the waters west of the Peloponnese coast, one of the deepest areas in the Mediterranean.
An investigation to determine the causes of the tragedy
The Greek Supreme Court has also ordered an investigation to determine the causes of the tragedy that has shocked Greece, accused for years of turning back migrants seeking asylum in the EU. A three-day national mourning was declared, interrupting the electoral campaign in view of the legislative ballot on June 25. But some newspapers did not hide their anger at this new tragedy affecting migrants. The center-left daily Efsyn thus displayed in one and in six languages this simple word: “Shame!”.
In Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city, some 5,000 people took to the streets, police said, carrying slogans such as “The government and the European Union are killing” and “No to fortress Europe. Solidarity with the refugees”.
“In a state of shock”
In the port of Kalamata, “it’s really horrible,” Erasmia Roumana, a UNHCR employee, told AFP. The survivors are “in a very bad psychological situation (…) Many are in a state of shock, they are overwhelmed”.
104 people have been rescued and should soon be transferred to a reception center for migrants in Malakasa, northeast of Athens. The survivors “are all men,” said the coast guard spokeswoman, raising fears that women and children, who usually also board these boats, are among the missing. These survivors are mostly Syrians (47), Egyptians (43), as well as 12 Pakistanis and two Palestinians, according to the Greek authorities.
A survivor also told doctors at Kalamata hospital that he had seen around 100 children in the hold of the boat, according to public broadcaster ERT. More than twenty people remain hospitalized in Kalamata, according to the same source.
An image released by the coastguard showed a blue trawler, 25-30m long, and obviously in poor condition overloaded with people, gathered on the deck from bow to stern and even on the roof of the gangway. According to the Greek port authorities, a surveillance plane from the European agency Frontex had spotted the boat on Tuesday afternoon but the rescue services did not intervene because the passengers “refused any help”. Frontex did not provide comment. But his boss Hans Leijtens went to Kalamata to establish “the role” of the European Border Surveillance Agency in this “horrible” shipwreck.