(Athens) A year after one of the worst migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean which caused the death of more than 600 people, survivors have filed a complaint against the Greek coast guard, their lawyers announced Thursday.
The dilapidated and overloaded trawler, which left Libya for Italy, sank on the night of June 13 to 14, about 47 nautical miles (87 km) from the Greek town of Pylos, in the Peloponnese (southwest). ).
It carried more than 750 exiles, according to the United Nations, but only 82 bodies were found.
Among the 104 survivors, 53 filed a complaint against the coast guard, saying they took hours to intervene despite reports from the European border agency Frontex and the NGO Alarm Phone.
PHOTO PETROS GIANNAKOURIS, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
“This is a crime committed over a period of more than 15 hours,” protested Eleni Spathana, lawyer for the NGO Refugee Support Aegean, during a press conference.
The case is still the subject of a preliminary investigation by the Piraeus Naval Court, but lawyers for the survivors say they have found numerous irregularities regarding the actions of the coast guard.
Although a rescue tugboat is stationed at the port of Gythio in the Peloponnese, the coast guard chose to send a smaller vessel whose main purpose is patrolling, said Maria Papamina, legal coordinator of the Greek Council for the refugees.
The patrol boat’s video and black box were damaged during the operation and were not repaired until two months later.
“We have justified fears that there is an attempted cover-up,” Mr.me Papamina.
“There was clearly no intention to come to the rescue of this boat,” added Mr.me Spathana.
Eighteen of the victims remain unburied, and of these, eight have yet to be identified.
The Greek rights defender also opened an investigation into the matter, after the coast guard refused to conduct an internal investigation, lawyers said on Thursday.
Last month, a Kalamata court dropped charges against nine Egyptians accused of being smugglers of the sunken trawler.
Migrant aid associations and several international media have pointed out the responsibility of the coast guards who took a long time to intervene.
The Greek authorities, on the defensive, insisted that the migrants had refused any help.
For their part, survivors claimed that the coast guard wanted to tow the overloaded trawler, which would have caused it to capsize.
On Friday, relatives of the victims in Pakistan plan to gather in the town of Lala Musa, migrant defense NGOs in Athens announced.