Greece yesterday pursued a grim search for survivors a day after a fishing boat overloaded with migrants capsized and sank in the Ionian Sea, with the number of victims feared to reach into the hundreds.
As relatives in the migrants’ home countries frantically sought news of their loved ones, the coast guard said 78 bodies had been recovered so far, amending a toll of 79 deaths given on Wednesday.
“This could be the worst maritime tragedy in Greece in recent years,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Representative in Greece Stella Nanou told state broadcaster ERT.
Photo: Reuters
“It’s really horrific,” UNHCR staffer Erasmia Roumana told reporters at the port of Kalamata, adding that the survivors were “in a very bad psychological situation.”
“Many are under shock, they are so overwhelmed,” she said. “Many of them worry about the people they traveled with, families or friends. They want to call their families and tell them that they arrived.”
A spokeswoman told reporters that two patrol boats, a helicopter and six other ships in the area were searching the waters west of the Peloponnese Peninsula, one of the deepest areas in the Mediterranean.
Greece has declared three days of mourning over the tragedy.
“One young man started to cry and said: ‘I need my mother...’ This voice is inside my ears. And will always be inside,” Red Cross nurse Ekaterini Tsata told reporters.
About 30 people were hospitalized with pneumonia and exhaustion, but are not in immediate danger, officials said.
The coast guard took half of the victims to Kalamata on Wednesday, and a Greek navy frigate would take the remaining bodies yesterday, the agency said.
So far 104 people have been rescued, but there are fears that hundreds more are missing, based on testimony from the survivors, and that no women and children were among them.
Greek government spokesman Ilias Siakantaris on Wednesday said there were unconfirmed reports that up to 750 people were on the boat.
“We do not know what was in the hold ... but we know that several smugglers lock people up to maintain control,” he told ERT.
A survivor told doctors in Kalamata that he had seen 100 children in the boat’s hold, ERT said.
“The fishing boat was 25-30m long. Its deck was full of people, and we assume the interior was just as full,” coast guard spokesman Nikolaos Alexiou told ERT.
The coast guard said a surveillance plane with Europe’s Frontex agency had spotted the boat on Tuesday afternoon, but the passengers had “refused any help.”
The boat’s engine gave up shortly before 11pm on Tuesday and the vessel capsized in the deepest waters of the Mediterranean Sea, Siakantaris said, sinking in about 10 to 15 minutes.
It added that none on board were wearing life jackets.
Authorities said it appeared the migrants had departed from Libya and were heading for Italy.
The survivors are mainly from Syria, Egypt and Pakistan, the coast guard said, and are temporarily housed in a port warehouse to be identified and interviewed by Greek authorities, who are looking for possible smugglers among them.
Eight people are being questioned in connection with the accident.
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