Hope is fading for hundreds of passengers missing in the Mediterranean Sea after a 750-person trawler, with huge crowds of migrants hiding in the bottom of the ship, sank off the southern Greek coast in the early hours of Wednesday. As Greek authorities come under criticism for not acting to rescue the migrants, even though a coast guard vessel escorted the trawler for hours, relatives of the missing migrants gathered in the southern port city of Kalamata to look for their loved ones.
At the time of the incident, dozens of people on the upper and lower decks were seen looking up, some with arms outstretched, while witnesses said many more women and children were below in the hold, according to local reports.
A huge search-and-rescue operation initially recovered 78 bodies and picked up 104 survivors — all men and boys – but no more have been found.
Charity Alarm Phone, which operates a network supporting rescue operations and received frantic calls from some of those on board, said up to 750 people may have been on the vessel, speaking fears that hundreds are still missing.
The search for survivors continued on Thursday morning and is expected to last until at least Friday, Greek authorities said.
Kassem Abu Zeed said he caught the first flight from Germany to Greece after realising that his wife and brother-in-law were aboard 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,” he said. “She had paid $5,000” to smugglers, he added, “and then we all know what happened.”
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.
But given no women are believed to have been rescued, the chances are low that Abu Zeed’s wife survived the sinking about roughly 50 miles offshore.
Greek officials said the boat got into difficulties when its engine stopped and it began veering from side to side.
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It then capsized and sank at around 2am on Wednesday. Shortly beforehand, Alarm Phone said it spoke to someone on board who said: “The captain left on a small boat. Please, any solution.”
They also pleaded for food and water, and said the vessel had stopped moving, according to the charity.
Six coastguard vessels, a navy frigate, a military transport plane, an air force helicopter, several private vessels and a drone from the European Union border protection agency, Frontex, are taking part in the current search operation.
Officials said it was unlikely the sunken boat would be recovered because the area of international waters is one of the deepest in the Mediterranean.
Given the suspected number of people believed to be on the vessel when it sank, the disaster could quickly become the one of the deadliest ever in the central Mediterranean Sea.
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