‘No lifejackets, no food, some drank seawater’: Greece migrant shipwreck survivor

The number of confirmed victims in the migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean rose to 81 on Monday (June 19) after three more bodies were found off southern Greece. Survivors said the battered trawler was being towed by another vessel before it sank with hundreds of people aboard.

The boat that sank off the coast of Greece with around 750 people on board was carrying at least 400 Pakistani nationals, 200 Egyptians, and 150 Syrians, including around two dozen Syrian women and young children. At least 12 persons suspected of human trafficking have been arrested from different parts of Pakistan.

The new accounts raised further questions about the Greek coast guard’s response from the moment it located the ship until it went down. Officials in Athens have insisted that the metal fishing boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy was at no point under tow, and only had a line briefly attached to it hours before it capsized and foundered.

The coast guard has also been widely criticized for not trying to rescue the migrants before their vessel sank. It argued that they refused any assistance and insisted on proceeding to Italy, adding that it would have been too dangerous to try to evacuate hundreds of unwilling people off an overcrowded ship. The full details of the incident remain unclear.

Also read: Overcrowded migrant boat sinks off Greece; at least 79 dead, hundreds missing

Survivor account

Ali Sheikhi, a Kurdish man from the war-scarred town of Kobani in northeast Syria, had hoped the vessel would take him to a better life in Europe. Then, he would eventually bring over his wife and three young sons. Instead, the ship sank in international waters two hours after midnight on June 14. Only 104 survivors have been found so far, and 81 bodies recovered.

But many accounts backed by Sheikhi say up to 750 people were on board. He told Kurdish TV Rudaw that he and other relatives from Kobani, including a younger brother who died, had agreed to pay smugglers USD 4,000 each for the trip a sum later raised to USD 4,500.

“We said, no problem, so long as the boat was big and in good shape,” he told Rudaw late Sunday, speaking by phone from a closed reception centre near Athens where survivors have been moved. “They told us we should not bring any food or anything else because it is all available on the boat. The smugglers didn’t let anyone bring lifejackets and threw whatever food the passengers had into the sea,” he added, echoing accounts from other survivors.

Sheikhi said he and his companions were directed to the ship’s hold — a deathtrap where hundreds, including women and children, are believed to have drowned but got onto the deck after paying extra money to the smugglers. By the time the ship sank, they had been five days at sea. Water ran out after a day and a half, and some passengers resorted to drinking seawater.

Crucially, Sheikhi said the trawler went down after its engine broke down and another vessel tried to tow it. “In the pulling, (the trawler) sank,” he said. “We don’t know who it belonged to.” Similar claims have been made by other survivors in accounts posted on social media, and other survivors were anonymously quoted in Syrian media Monday saying the ship was being towed.

“One side went up and the people fell from there into the sea,” Sheikhi told Rudaw. “The people started to scream in the dark. Every person tried to hold on to the other and pull him under so he stayed above water. I thought then no one will survive.”

Greek authorities have insisted that the ship wobbled violently before sinking after an abrupt shift in position by many of its passengers. A Greek navy frigate, with four other vessels and two aircraft continued to search the area Monday, and recovered three more bodies the first found since Wednesday that raised the confirmed toll to 81.

Also read: Indians among eight migrants found dead near US-Canada border

Search for loved ones

In the southern port of Kalamata, where survivors were initially taken, a court postponed for Tuesday a hearing for nine Egyptian alleged crew members of the trawler. The men face multiple charges, including negligent manslaughter and people smuggling. The court gave the suspects and their lawyers time to review the testimonies of nine Syrian and Pakistani survivors, provided over the weekend.

Meanwhile, passengers’ relatives who flew in from several European countries arrived at the migrant centre in Malakasa, north of Athens, trying to track down family members known to have been on the boat. Around 20 people were allowed into a restricted area next to the facility: they spoke to relatives through the fence, passing them documents, snacks and soft drinks.

Zohaib Shamraiz, a Pakistani man living in Barcelona, didn’t know if his 40-year-old uncle, Nadeem Muhamm, was alive five days after the perilous trip. “I spoke to him five minutes before he got on the boat. I told him not to go. I was afraid. He said he had no choice,” Shamraiz told the AP.

In their last conversation, Muhamm described being herded onto the ship with others by smugglers carrying swords, Shamraiz said. “He told me there were too many people but if the (passengers) didn’t get on the ship, they would kill them.” Shamraiz travelled to Greece on Monday attempting to trace his uncle and to provide a DNA sample to crossmatch the ones retrieved from the recovered bodies.

His uncle, who had been travelling alone, is married and has three young children in Pakistan. “He is very poor and he was trying to help his family have a better life,” Shamraiz said. The other survivors, all men and youths, were from Egypt, Syria, and Palestine.

Duccio Staderini, a senior official for Greece at the Doctors Without Frontiers (MSF) international charity, said smuggling networks were growing stronger due to migration bottlenecks resulting from Europe’s tight border policies.

“The smugglers, these criminal networks, are emerging because of these bottlenecks,” he told The AP after visiting survivors in Malakasa. “And it’s getting worse and worse, and uglier and uglier.”

(With agency inputs)