In a recent boat disaster off the coast of Greece, survivors have accused the Greek coastguard of causing the overcrowded fishing vessel to sink. The boat, carrying an estimated 750 migrants, mainly from Pakistan, Syria, and Egypt, capsized on 14 June, resulting in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the Mediterranean in recent years. Out of the total passengers, only 104 survived, and 82 bodies have been recovered. Survivors claim that the Greek coastguard was towing the vessel when it sank, causing it to capsize. However, Greek authorities have denied this and stated that the migrants on board refused assistance, expressing a desire to travel to Italy. Some survivors allege that Greek officials pressured them not to speak to the media about the incident and attempted to change their accounts in return for financial aid and expedited refugee status applications. The Greek authorities have not provided a comment on these allegations, citing an ongoing investigation. The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has called for urgent action to prevent further deaths at sea and urged the European Union to establish safe regular pathways in the Mediterranean.
how Europe handles refugees and migrants is such a shame. we could do better. we should do better.
You mean how mostly the Mediterranean e.g Italy and Greece handles it? Cause they do all the work and all things considered do pretty well. Maybe if the rest of Europe pitched in more that would be great.
This is such a complex issue but it is baffling that whenever there is an incident such as the one that happened recently, the whole blame is always placed in the government agencies rather than the criminals that organise and charge for such dangerous crossings.
Okay but what are European citizens supposed to do about the traffickers? They can reform the coast guard and rescue operations to save as many people as possible, but they can’t necessarily reach into foreign countries and take down human smuggling operations or remove the incentives that cause those operations to spring up in the first place. Except by making immigration as easy and facilitated as possible themselves, so people don’t have to resort to the smugglers’ unsafe and expensive operations to escape their situations, but this seems like it might be politically a taller order at the moment than fixing the rescue systems. And it likewise doesn’t punish the traffickers, but tbh all I care about is that people stop dying in the ocean so close to people who could help them and don’t.
Well, I’d like to hold government agencies to a higher standard than human traffickers. That the criminals who organize these crossings are scum isn’t really disputed by anyone.
I blame the criminal gang that took their money, provided the boat and sent them all out there. Odd the news never mentions that end of the boats journey. I guess that would require some journalism though instead of the “This person said this. That person said that” lazy copy that is standard nowadays
I imagine a lot of that is due to issues with liability. If a journalist says “X did Y”, that opens them up to lawsuits. If they say “A alleges that X did Y”, then that allows them to report without fear of a lawsuit.
The end of the article did talk about who may have sent them out there.
Two of the survivors said Greek authorities had asked them, through interpreters and lawyers, to give evidence against the nine Egyptians who have been accused of people trafficking.
But all four survivors said the nine Egyptians were passengers, seated among them on the journey. They say the ship’s crew were masked and spent most of their time in the cabin.
“The crew jumped in the water when the coastguard approached and some of these nine Egyptians tried to sail the boat,” one of them told us. “It seems to me they are not the ones involved in people smuggling,” he added.
Relatives of Egyptians who fear their loved ones were on board have told the BBC that they paid $4,500 (£3,500) each for the journey.
