Yesterday, the Greek press insisted on two frightening figures about the shipwreck on Wednesday morning off the Peloponnese peninsula: that around 750 people were traveling on the sunken fishing boat full of immigrants and that a hundred were minors. These data emerge from the images taken by the Greek coast guard before the sinking, from the account of some of the 104 survivors – all men and the majority Syrian and Egyptian, including at least six minors – and from the statements of an activist who contact the immigrants before the shipwreck. Until yesterday, only 78 bodies had been found.
Last night, the AFP agency and the ERT television channel reported that the Greek police arrested nine Egyptians – including the ship’s captain, allegedly – accused of being the traffickers, and that they would be among those rescued.
Manolis Makaris, head of cardiology at the hospital in Kalamata – the city closest to the shipwreck – which treated many of the survivors, told the newspaper Ta Nea that he received a flood of calls from relatives of the migrants, many of whom they sent photos of children who were supposedly on board to find out if they were alive.
“I received a lot of calls and photos (from Syria and Egypt) sent to me by the relatives of the disappeared hoping to know if they were alive. I learned that many were from the same village. In the messages they asked me if I had seen these children”, said Makaris. “(The survivors) told me there were 750 people on board,” he added. “The first thing they wanted was to talk to their loved ones; it was a moment full of emotions”, assured Makaris. The doctor also told the ERT channel that a survivor told him that he had seen “a hundred children in the hold” of the ship, where apparently the women were also traveling.
The old fishing vessel sunk in the Ionian Sea, 30 meters long, initially set sail empty from an Egyptian port and called in the Libyan city of Tobruk, where the hundreds of migrants boarded, who sailed for five days. Rescue teams were still searching for survivors yesterday, who also include Pakistani and Palestinian citizens.
Public opinion and the media in Greece are wondering how it is possible that a coast guard of that country, alerted by Frontex, the EU’s border service, approached the fishing vessel, overloaded with migrants, in international waters, and did nothing to help its occupants, who would soon drown.
The Greek Government – which has decreed three days of mourning – assures that the migrants refused the help of the coast guard because they wanted to reach Italy. However, the Italian activist of Moroccan origin Nawal Soufi denies this and says that he had been talking on the phone for hours with the ship’s passengers, who told him that the captain had abandoned them at sea and that “they definitely needed help wherever were found”.
However, last night’s information about the captain’s arrest would contradict these statements.
In any case, the Supreme Court of Greece ordered the opening of an investigation to clarify who is responsible for the death of these hundreds of migrants. For years, Greek and international groups have been accusing the Athens government of hastily returning immigrants who want to apply for asylum.
On the other hand, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) described the shipwreck in the Ionian Sea as “one of the most devastating tragedies in the Mediterranean in a decade”. Although it did not give a figure, the organization spoke of “hundreds more people” who drowned.
