Trawler Tragedy Survivors Blame Greek Coastguard

Malakasa, Greece, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 30th Jun, 2023 ) :Survivors of the fishing trawler that went down off Greece carrying hundreds of migrants claimed it was no accident.

"I really don't have the impression that the Greek coastguard wanted to save us at all," said 26-year-old Hassan, who spoke to AFP out of earshot of Greek police guarding a migrant camp at Malakasa, where many survivors are being held.

The rusty vessel capsized and sank in the Ionian Sea on the night of June 13 within sight of the Greek coastguard.

They had been shadowing the trawler with air and sea units for much of the day following tip offs from Italy and EU border agency Frontex.

They managed to rescue 104 people and recover 82 bodies but as many as 560 others on board may have perished, by some estimates.

AFP spoke to five survivors of the tragedy, which is likely to go down as one of the worst migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean.

"It was a criminal act," said 28-year-old Salim, who like the others used a pseudonym to protect anonymity out of fears for his safety. He claimed the coastguard's actions caused the sinking.

According to the survivors, the coastguards threw cables twice to the boat to tow it.

The first time, the line failed to catch. The second time, "the rope was tied to the bow by the (Greek) boat which suddenly zigzagged from left to right very quickly, producing waves. That's when the boat capsized," Salim said.

The Greek navy ministry told AFP that they cannot comment on "the investigation which is being carried out in strict confidentiality".

But Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Thursday that "the real responsibility lies with the criminal gangs that filled the boat with desperate people... without even giving them life jackets." - 'We could hear their cries' - The survivors were almost exclusively men, with hundreds of women and children believed to have been locked on the lower deck.

"I don't know how many they were, but we could hear their cries," said Ahmad, a 27-year-old Syrian.

The coastguard said it had encouraged nearby ships to give food and water to the Pakistanis, Syrians, Palestinians and Egyptians on board, but decided not to attempt a rescue after being repeatedly told by an English-speaker on the vessel that it did not need assistance.

"Its deck was full of people, and we assume the interior was just as full," coastguard spokesman Nikolaos Alexiou told state tv ERT afterwards.

"You cannot divert a boat with so many people on board by force unless there is cooperation," he said.

In its official account, the Greek coastguard said the trawler had notified at 2240 GMT on June 13 that its engine had failed.

Twenty-four minutes later, the Greek patrol boat skipper radioed in that the boat had capsized. It sank within 15 minutes, at 2:19 am Greek time.

Ahmad said the engine had stopped before midnight, some 90 minutes before the time given by the Greeks.

- Coastguard 'watched from afar' - After the trawler capsized, the Greek coastguard "watched us from afar for at least 10 minutes, and only then did they send two inflatable boats to help people in the water," Salim said, his eyes full of tears.

Azad, 21, said he had to swim for at least an hour to reach the Greek coastguard boat.

The initial government account made no mention of tow cables.

It was only on June 16 that the Greek government said a rope had been thrown to "stabilise" the boat, but that the migrants had refused help, saying, "No help, go Italy." On Monday, EU border agency Frontex said Greece had ignored an offer of aerial support prior to the sinking.

Earlier that day, a Frontex plane had monitored the fishing vessel that had set out from Libya for 10 minutes before the aircraft had to return to base for refuelling, the agency told AFP.

Frontex said the agency "offered additional aerial support to Greek authorities on 13 June but received no response." Originally from Daraa, the cradle of the rebellion against the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, Salim had paid close to $4,500 for the trip to Italy.

Stuck in Tobruk, Libya for eight months, he was moved by smugglers "from hangar to hangar, where we were crammed in by the dozens," he said.

Rukayan, a Kurd from the Syrian town of Kobane, likewise paid $4,500 for the trip, after an initial $1,800 to get from Lebanon to Libya via Egypt.

When the journey began on June 9, Rukayan remembered paying an additional $200 to be taken to the boat and permitted to travel on the upper deck.

"I don't know why I survived all this," he said.

His 17-year-old cousin is still missing, and Rukayan is haunted by images of the shipwreck.

He now hopes to join his brother and sister in Germany. "I don't want to stay in this country of murderers," he said.