At least 79 people drowned on Wednesday in southwestern Greece in the sinking of a boat carrying “hundreds” of migrants, the Greek coast guard said, and the toll could rise further.
The fishing boat the victims were on board capsized in international waters off the Peloponnese peninsula, they said. A massive rescue operation that began on Wednesday morning rescued a total of 104 people, they added, despite poor sea conditions and strong winds.
The search continued at the beginning of the evening, the Greek authorities having affirmed that people embarked on the fishing boat had assured them of having been at least 750 on board, including a hundred children.
“The ship was 25 to 30 meters long. The deck was packed, and we believe the interior was too,” coast guard spokesman Nikolaos Alexiou told ERT television.
A government spokesman, Ilias Siakantari, added: “We don’t know how many people were inside, but we do know that it is usual for smugglers to lock them up, in order to maintain orders on board. »
On Twitter, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said: “We fear further loss of life. Initial counts show 400 passengers. »
The coastguard spokesman added that a Greek army C-130 aircraft would patrol overnight over the waters in which the boat sank.
Mr. Siakantari said that the ship’s engine broke down overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday and that the boat sank in about fifteen minutes, in very deep waters.
Greek television channels showed survivors, gray blankets over their shoulders and hygienic masks over their faces, getting off a yacht bearing the inscription “Georgetown”, the capital of the Cayman Islands, went to rescue them at sea. others were evacuated on stretchers.
According to Mr. Alexiou, most of the survivors are from Syria, Pakistan or Egypt.
The President of the Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, went there.
Greece has experienced many shipwrecks of migrant boats, often dilapidated and overloaded, but this is so far the heaviest human toll since June 3, 2016, when at least 320 people died or disappeared.
No life jackets
The coast guard said that at the time of the tragedy, 47 nautical miles from Pylos, in the Ionian Sea, no passenger was equipped with a life jacket.
The ship was spotted on Tuesday afternoon by a plane from Frontex, the European border surveillance agency, but the migrants on board “refused any help”, said the Greek port authorities in a previous press release.
In addition to the port police patrol boats, a frigate from the Greek navy, an airplane and a helicopter from the air force as well as six boats which sailed in the area took part in this rescue operation.
According to information from the authorities, the wrecked ship had sailed from Libya to Italy. At the external borders of the European Union in the Mediterranean, Greece is a common passage for many of those seeking to migrate to the Union from neighboring Turkey.
Sailboat in trouble
Many shipwrecks, often deadly, take place in the Aegean Sea, while Greece is regularly accused by NGOs and the media of turning back migrants.
Since the start of the year, 44 people have drowned in the eastern Mediterranean, according to the IOM. Last year, the number of people who died in this way was at least 372.
In the electoral campaign for the legislative elections of June 25, the former conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has decided to cancel an electoral rally scheduled for the end of the day in Patras, the large port of this region of Peloponnese, announced his party, New Democracy.
This politician, who during his four years at the head of the government led a very tough migration policy, also spoke on the phone with the interim Prime Minister, Ioannis Sarmas.
The latter, in office until the legislative elections, is “in communication with the competent authorities” and “is constantly informed” of the evolution of the situation, according to his services. He decreed three days of mourning in the country.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she was “deeply saddened” and assured in a post on Twitter that the Member States of the European Union must “continue to work together, with […] third countries, to avoid such tragedies”.