The sinking of a fishing boat in the Ionian Sea, with more than 700 migrants and refugees on board, leaves 79 dead and hundreds missing. These people would have left Libya for Italy, but, once again, the Mediterranean Sea, the largest mass grave of migrants and refugees in the world, swallowed them up. The Greek authorities continue the search and rescue efforts of survivors.
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A new preventable shipwreck off the European coast. The sinking of a fishing boat with hundreds of people on board in the Ionian Sea leaves at least 79 dead, but authorities warn that the number of deaths “probably” will increase drastically. Just over 100 migrants who were on the boat have been rescued alive by the Greek Coast Guard.
It is the deadliest shipwreck so far this year in those waters, known as the world’s largest cemetery for migrants and refugees.
“The central Mediterranean continues to be a place of escape from hell on dry land,” notes the relief organization Open Arms. “In fact, it is a tragic situation, a very difficult situation with a large number of shipwrecked (people), a number that I believe we have not faced in the past to such an extent and volume,” the regional health director explained to the media. Greek, Yannis Karvelis.
It is believed that more than 700 people were on board the crashed ship and it is not yet known how many are missing at sea.
The ship sighted yesterday between #Greece and #Malt with 750 people on board it sank off the Peloponnese. Greek Navy SAR operation arrived too late despite SOS calls for now only 80 survivors. Hundreds dead and missing.
— Oscar Camps (@campsoscar) June 14, 2023
The survivors, some 106 so far, were taken by helicopter and ambulance to the closest hospitals to the city of Kalamata, with symptoms of hypothermia.
“We have transferred four with mild symptoms of hypothermia from the airport. As for the port, so far we have transferred 13 people and fortunately no one in critical condition,” said the president of the national emergency services, Nikolao Papaefstathiou.
Hundreds missing at sea
“The ship sighted yesterday between Greece and Malta with 750 people on board sank off the Peloponnese. The Greek Navy’s SAR operation was too late despite SOS calls. For now only (there are) 80 survivors. Hundreds of dead and missing,” denounced Óscar Camps, director of the Open Arms rescue organization, on Twitter.
The boat left eastern Libya loaded with migrants – most of them from Egypt, Syria and Pakistan, most of them men in their 20s – bound for Italian territory. The European Union border agency, Frontex, last sighted her late Tuesday night in international waters. According to border agents, on Tuesday afternoon, a Coast Guard boat approached the fishing boat, but the crew members refused assistance, expressed distrust and their desire to continue.
Normally, border agents carry out maneuvers so that the migrant boats change their course, acting as a maritime border, for which, often, the migrants themselves fear the agents.
“Greece became the shield of Europe,” the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, once said.
The central Mediterranean, one of the deadliest routes of migration
Late at night, the barge capsized on the Peloponnese peninsula and submerged with the migrants and refugees inside. Shortly after the incident, a search and rescue operation was launched involving ten vessels, a Greek navy frigate, a helicopter and a Frontex drone. Even the president of Greece, Ekaterini Skellaropoulou, traveled to Kalamata to learn about the progress.
However, humanitarian organizations such as Alarm Phone, which is in charge of monitoring and providing support to migrant boats in the Mediterranean Sea, denounced having alerted the authorities to the whereabouts of the barge and its precarious conditions.
Since yesterday afternoon and until shortly after midnight today, Alarm Phone was in contact with the boat in distress that reportedly capsized. We hereby provide a timeline of events. Europe’s borders kill. pic.twitter.com/QsWl00pac9
—Alarm Phone (@alarm_phone) June 14, 2023
“The Greek authorities, apparently also those of Italy and Malta, had already been alerted several hours earlier. Therefore, the Greek and other European authorities were well aware of this overcrowded and unseaworthy ship. A rescue operation was not launched,” reads a statement from the organization, which was in contact with the ship until just after midnight on Tuesday.
This shipwreck is one more in the long list of tragedies that are experienced daily in the Mediterranean Sea. Mafias and smuggling networks often use precarious boats to send migrants and refugees adrift. According to the International Organization for Migration, nearly 72,000 refugees and migrants have reached the frontline shores of Europe: Greece, Malta, Italy or Spain. More than 3,800 have died on its journey, 2,761 of these deaths were at sea.
“These tragic deaths at sea are preventable. We need more safe routes so that people forced to flee are not forced to risk their lives,” UNHCR criticized on Twitter.
Given the normalization of these situations, activists and human rights defenders have called a demonstration in Lesbos, one of the main points of arrival for migrants, under the slogan: “They are not accidents, they are murders.”
With Reuters and local media
