Greece shipwreck: people smuggling suspects arrested as search continues

Read More

Greek authorities have arrested nine suspected people-smugglers who are believed to have piloted the overcrowded fishing boat that sank off the coast on Wednesday, in one of the worst disasters in the Mediterranean in recent years.

The search operation in the tragedy in which hundreds are feared to have died, is due to continue until at least Friday morning, according to government sources. So far, 78 deaths have been confirmed but Greek police believe as many as 500 are missing, with witness accounts that up to 100 children were travelling in the ship’s hold.

The chances of retrieving the sunken vessel were remote, the sources said, because the area of international waters where the incident occurred was so deep. The chances of finding more survivors “are minimal”, retired Greek coast guard Admiral Nikos Spanos told national broadcaster ERT.

“We have seen old fishing boats like this before from Libya. They are not at all seaworthy. To put it simply, they are floating coffins.”

On Thursday night, Skai TV reported that the nine people smuggling suspects – all men – were of Egyptian descent and were suspected of masterminding the illegal voyage of hundreds of people to Italy from Libya, after first setting out from Egyptwith the trawler.

“They are in custody and will appear before a local magistrate,” Nikos Alexiou, the Hellenic coastguard spokesperson, told the Guardian. “They are being held by the coastguard in Kalamata.”

A public prosecutor is likely to press several charges against the group including that of mass murder. Local media reports said the ship’s captain was not among them and had died when the vessel went down.

On Thursday evening, thousands of protesters rallied in Athens and the northern city of Thessaloniki, demanding European Union migration policies be eased to prevent another tragedy. A group of protesters in the capital threw petrol bombs at police who responded with teargas.

In Kalamata, protesters marched outside the migrants’ shelter. “Crocodile tears! No to the EU’s pact on migration,” read one banner.

During a visit to Kalamata on Thursday, Alexis Tsipras, who was prime minister from 2015-2019 at the peak of Europe’s migration crisis, said “The immigration policy that Europe has been following for years … turns the Mediterranean, our seas, into watery graves.” Tsipras, now an opposition leader, said:”What sort of protocol does not call for the rescue… of an overloaded boat about to sink?”

Under its conservative government who were in power until last month, Greece took a harder stance on migration, building walled camps and boosting border controls. The country is currently governed by a caretaker administration pending an election on 25 June.

Greece’s government spokesperson Ilias Siakantaris told Reuters that the biggest challenge for EU border states “is forging a comprehensive EU solution on migration and asylum that respects international law and inclusive humanism.”

The United Nations has registered more than 20,000 deaths and disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014, making it the most dangerous migrant crossing in the world.

Greek authorities have been criticised for not acting to rescue the migrants on Wednesday, despite a coast guard vessel escorting the trawler for hours the night before it sank. Greek officials argued that the migrants repeatedly refused assistance and insisted on continuing to Italy. However, a network of activists said they received repeated distress calls from the vessel during the same time.

The Greek coast guard said it was notified of the boat’s presence late Tuesday morning and observed by helicopter that it was “sailing on a steady course” at 6pm. A little later, Greek search-and-rescue officials said they reached someone on the boat by satellite phone, who repeatedly said that passengers needed food and water but wanted to continue to Italy.

“It was a fishing boat packed with people who refused our assistance because they wanted to go to Italy,” a coastguard spokesperson, Nikos Alexiou, told Skai TV. “We stayed beside it in case it needed our assistance, which they had refused.”

Merchant ships delivered supplies and observed the vessel until early Wednesday morning, when the satellite phone user reported a problem with the engine. About 40 minutes later, according to the coast guard statement, the migrant vessel began to rock violently and sank.

The acting Greek migration minister, Daniel Esdras, told the TV station ERT that Greece would examine survivors’ asylum claims but those not entitled to protection would be sent home.

The deadliest migrant tragedy in Greece was in June 2016, when at least 320 people were listed as dead or missing in a sinking near Crete.

Greece’s caretaker government has called three days of national mourning, with electoral campaigning ahead of polls on 25 June suspended.