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.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS