The captain of an overcrowded fishing boat carrying migrants abandoned ship, leading to a tragic wreck off southern Greece that killed at least 79 people.
The boat, which is believed to have set sail from Libya, was overcrowded, with estimates of the number aboard ranging from 400 to 750, according to Reuters.
Rescuers saved 104 passengers – including Egyptians, Syrians, Pakistanis, Afghans and Palestinians – and recovered 79 bodies. The search went on early on Thursday for more, with aircraft dropping flares to help search teams.
It is feared hundreds may have died after being trapped inside the overloaded vessel's hold.
The overcrowded boat, filled with people seeking refuge in Europe, sunk after reportedly rejecting several offers of assistance.
Alarm Phone, a network of activists that operate a hotline for migrant vessels in distress, reported that the passengers expressed a desperate need for help.
They claimed that the ship's captain had deserted the vessel on a smaller boat before it capsized.
Greece maintained a search for survivors on Thursday, with 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.
Rebuffed assistance and abandoned ship
Greece's coastguard said it was notified by Italian authorities of the trawler's presence in international waters.
It said efforts by its own ships and merchant vessels to assist the boat were repeatedly rebuffed, with people on board insisting they wanted to continue to Italy.
“They categorically refused any help,” Mr Alexiou said.
An aerial photograph of the vessel released by the coastguard showed scores of people covering practically every inch of the deck.
Greek media reports, which said the ship had been at sea for least two days, voiced fears that women and children may have been trapped in the hold.
“The outer deck was full of people, and we presume that the interior [of the vessel] would also have been full,” Mr Alexiou said. “It looks as if there was a shift among the people who were crammed on board, and it capsized.”
Government officials said that before capsizing and sinking around 2am on Wednesday, the vessel's engine stopped and it began veering from side to side.
Independent refugee activist Nawal Soufi said in a Facebook post that she was contacted by migrants aboard the vessel in the early hours of Tuesday, and that she had been in contact with them until 11pm.
"The whole time they asked me what they should do and I kept telling them that Greek help would come. In this last call, the man I was talking to expressly told me: 'I feel that this will be our last night alive,'" she wrote.
The Greek coastguard, navy and merchant vessels as well as aircraft initiated a large-scale search and rescue operation after the boat capsized.
“It's one of the biggest [such] operations ever in the Mediterranean,” Greek coastguard spokesman Nikos Alexiou told state ERT TV. “We won't stop looking.”
The total number of missing remains uncertain. But if accounts are accurate about the numbers of people on board, it could potentially be hundreds, making the sinking one of the worst recorded on the feared central Mediterranean migration route, which is the world's deadliest.
Ioannis Zafiropoulos, deputy mayor of the southern port city of Kalamata, where survivors were taken, said his information indicated there were “more than 500 people” on board.
At least 79 migrants dead after boat capsizes off Greek coast
Greece's caretaker Prime Minister Ioannis Sarmas declared a three-day period of national mourning for the victims, blaming ruthless smugglers who exploit human suffering.
As the rescue operations continue, more information is expected to emerge about this tragic incident.
Survivors
Thirty of the survivors, ranging in age from 16 to 49, were admitted to hospital with hypothermia or fever.
At the port of Kalamata, around 70 exhausted survivors bedded down in sleeping bags and blankets provided by rescuers in a large warehouse, while paramedics set up tents outside for anyone who needed first aid.
Rescue volunteer Constantinos Vlachonikolos said nearly all the survivors were men.
Grim reality of Mediterranean migration
Migration trends reveal that the journey from Libya or Tunisia through the central Mediterranean and north to Europe is the world's deadliest route, according to the UN’s International Organisation of Migration.
Smugglers often use unseaworthy boats crammed with as many migrants as possible – sometimes inside locked holds – for journeys that can take days.
They head for Italy, which is directly across the Mediterranean from Libya and Tunisia and much closer than Greece to the western European countries that most migrants hope to eventually reach.
Greece's migration policies
Alarm Phone has pinned blame on Greece's migration policy for the shipwreck, accusing Athens of becoming “Europe’s shield” against migration.
However, the Greek coastguard has defended its actions, saying it followed the vessel even after its offers of assistance were refused.
It then launched a rescue operation when the boat capsized.
Rising number of migrant arrivals in Europe
Italy has reported the majority of “irregular” arrivals in Europe this year, numbering 55,160, more than double the arrivals in the same period in 2022.
UN refugee officials note that despite the surge in Italy, the overall number of migrants seeking to reach Europe through this route has been declining, averaging about 120,000 annually.
Migration experts have linked the latest sinking with the EU's failure to provide safe immigration alternatives for people fleeing conflict or hardship in the Middle East and Africa.
“We are witnessing one of the biggest tragedies in the Mediterranean, and the numbers announced by the authorities are devastating,” said Gianluca Rocco, head of the Greek section of IOM, the UN migration agency.
“This situation reinforces the urgency for concrete, comprehensive action from states to save lives at sea and reduce perilous journeys by expanding safe and regular pathways to migration,” Mr Rocco said.
The IOM has recorded more than 21,000 deaths and disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014.
The Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwreck in living memory occurred on April 18, 2015, when an overcrowded fishing boat collided off Libya with a freighter trying to come to its rescue.
Only 28 people survived. Forensic experts concluded that there were originally 1,100 people on board.
