Nine survivors arrested over smuggling as hopes fade for 750 boat passengers

16 June 2023 , 08:42

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Aerial view taken from a rescue helicopter of migrants onboard the fishing vessel (Image: HELLENIC COASTGUARD/AFP via Gett)

Nine survivors of migrant boat tragedy which has resulted in multiple deaths have been arrested for people smuggling crimes.

Hundreds of people are missing while at least 78 have been confirmed dead after the overcrowded fishing boat sunk near Greece on Wednesday.

Greek officials said the boat may have been carrying as many as 750 people - including potentially up to 100 children - when it capsized, meaning it could be the deadliest sinking ever in the central Mediterranean Sea.

A huge search and rescue mission has managed to save 104 survivors, all of whom were men and boys.

The arrests came as pressure mounted on the country's authorities over the failure to act straight away, despite a coast guard escorting the vessel for hours and watching helplessly as it sank.

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Bags with bodies are pictured in a coast guard vessel before at the port in Kalamata (AFP via Getty Images)

Greek officials argued that the migrants repeatedly refused assistance and insisted on continuing to Italy, but legal experts said that is no excuse.

The coast guard said on Thursday that it had arrested nine survivors on suspicion of belonging to a smuggling ring that arranged the voyage.

State-run ERT TV said the suspects were all Egyptians, adding that the ship originally left an Egyptian port for the area of Tobruk in eastern Libya, where it picked up the migrants.

Relatives of the migrants - who each paid thousands of dollars for passage on the battered vessel - gathered in the southern port city of Kalamata to look for their loved ones.

Kassem Abu Zeed said he caught the first flight from Germany to Greece after realising that his wife and brother-in-law were on board the trawler.

"The last time we spoke was eight days ago, and (my wife) told me that she was getting ready to get on the boat," Mr Abu Zeed told the Associated Press.

He said she had paid 5,000 dollars to smugglers "and then we all know what happened".

Kassem Abu Zeed holds up a phone displaying a photo of himself with his wife, Ezra, who is missing (AP)

Mr Abu Zeed, a 34-year-old Syrian refugee living in Hamburg, said Esra Aoun, 21, and her 19-year-old brother, Abdullah, risked the dangerous crossing from Libya to Italy after they failed to find a legal way to join him in Germany.

The chances are low that his wife survived the sinking about 45 miles offshore. None of those rescued were women.

Now he hopes Abdullah may be among the men from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories who are being temporarily housed in a Kalamata warehouse or recuperating in hospitals from hypothermia and exposure.

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The chances of finding more survivors "are minimal", retired Greek coast guard Admiral Nikos Spanos told ERT.

Medics transfer a survivor to an ambulance in the port of Kalamata (Eurokinissi/AFP via Getty Images)

Based on interviews with survivors, it's estimated at least 40 children were aboard, although one senior doctor in southern Greece said it could be as many as 100.

Many of those pulled from the water now with loved ones or children unaccounted for.

Mohamed Abdi Marwan, who spoke by phone from Kobani, a Kurdish majority town in Syria, said five of his relatives were on the boat, including a 14-year-old, and that he has heard nothing since it sank.

He believes his nephew Ali Sheikhi, 29, is alive, after family members spotted him in photos of survivors, but that has not been confirmed.

"Those smugglers were supposed to only have 500 on the boat and now we hear there were 750," he said.

"What is this? Are they cattle or humans? How can they do this?" Mr Marwan said. He said each of his relatives paid 6,000 dollars for the trip.

Rescued migrants find shelter at a depot (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Greek authorities said the vessel appeared to be sailing normally until shortly before it sank and refused repeated rescue offers.

But a network of activists said they received repeated distress calls from the vessel during the same time, while one retired coast guard said rescues were "not a two-way contract - you don't need consent".

The trawler sank near the deepest part of the Mediterranean, where depths of up to 17,000 feet could hamper any effort to locate a sunken vessel.

Human rights groups say a European Union crackdown on smuggling has forced people to take longer, more dangerous routes to reach safe countries.

Susie Beever