There were a hundred children in the trunk of a ship with migrants that sank in the Ionian Sea

As the hours tick by, hopes for survivors from the migrant boat that sank in the Ionian Sea early Wednesday morning, the deadliest tragedy of the year, they disappear. The Greek authorities still do not state the number of missing, say the rescued between 500 and 750 people were on board fishing boat 30 meters long, among them more than a hundred children and women which traveled piled up in storage. The Greek Coast Guard is conducting an active search and rescue operation this Thursday in the area of ​​the sinking, which is located about 87 kilometers from the port of Pylos (Peloponnese region), in Calypso Trench, the deepest point in the Mediterranean.

Testimonies that come to light and are collected by Greek media such as daily newspapers Aunt Nea, about the conditions in which people lived on a fishing boat describe the magnitude of the horror of another journey of death through the Mediterranean Sea. According to what the survivor told the doctor who treated him at the hospital in Kalamata, – There were about a hundred children in the basements. They had no chance of getting out when the boat capsized and sank early Wednesday morning.

At midnight on Wednesday, a coast guard ship entered the port of Kalamata carrying various corpses that they were transferred by refrigerated truck to the morgues in Athens and Piraeus so that their identification could begin. The official death toll is 78, not the 79 reported on Wednesday.

Of the 104 rescued, 47 are Syrians, 43 Egyptians, twelve Pakistanis and two Palestinians. Most are younger men, although there are ten minors. They all spent last night in a warehouse in the port of Kalamata.

“They are able juice and have panic attacks. Many are looking for their relatives, one for his brother, another for his son,” Stavraoula Bambali, a member of the rescue team, told the daily. kathymerini. The mobile phone of the hospital doctor circulated among the rescued migrants and messages began to arrive from the relatives of the missing who were desperately looking for their loved ones.

“They were exhausted, some passed out while walking on the bridges of the boats that rescued them,” another rescuer told local media. He is among the first to come to the rescue luxury yacht Mayan Queen IV, owned by the heirs of Mexican billionaire Alberto Baillères. About 30 people remain hospitalized with pneumonia or simply because of exhaustion.

Prosecutor’s Office investigators are trying to identify human traffickers among the survivors. Each migrant paid 6,500 dollars (about 7,100 euros) for the trip from the Libyan coast to Italy, their initial destination, he said. Kathimerini.

Ship engine failure

Shortly after setting sail, the fishing boat’s engine began to cause problems and the skipper decided to abandon ship, according to the survivors, so that the migrants could no longer go to the shores of Calabria because they did not know how to get there. Wednesday early morning the engine stopped working and the boat was left without a rudder caused panic between tenants. The part moved to the side of the boat, the weight shifted and it eventually capsized.

Various non-governmental organizations They are beginning to question the version of Frontex and the Greek Coast Guard that the migrants refused their help. an activist Nawal Soufi, who contacted the ship, assures that not only did they not refuse help, but they sought it at any cost.

Doctors Without Borders and Open Arms condemn the EU’s “inaction” in rescuing migrants, with policies limited to border controls causing thousands of deaths at sea.

The European Border Agency, the president of Open Arms, Oscar Camps, points out to Efeu, “does not have a rescue mandate; we have seen many times how the Frontex plane signals the target, but no one will save him». “As much as the Greeks say they tried to save them, it is false: Only private boats approach. We are facing yet another deliberate inaction. Now the two will come days of mourning and political hypocrisy».