The survivors rescued from the ship that sank in the Mediterranean Sea off Greece on Wednesday, leaving 78 dead and hundreds missing, describe an “atmosphere of terror” aboard the ship, the Efe agency reported this Sunday.
According to that Spanish news agency, which cites testimonies recorded by television channels, the traffickers in command of the ship asked for money and had iron bars to terrorize the more than 700 migrants aboard the fishing boat.
Authorities arrested nine men of Egyptian nationality, among the 104 passengers rescued from the sea believed to be responsible for the ship.
According to Efe, the men were charged after Greek authorities numbered the survivors and, after showing photos to the rescued, asked if they could identify the traffickers.
The nine arrested men are charged with forming a criminal organization for trafficking migrants, causing a shipwreck and endangering lives and will appear on Monday at the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the city of Calamata, Greece.
According to the Greek public television station ERT, the boat left Egypt, made a stopover in eastern Libya, where the migrants boarded, and then continued to Italy, with an estimated more than 700 people on board, including women and children living in the holds were placed. of the ship.
“We traveled for four days, they gave us little food and dirty water. I estimate there were about 700 people on the boat,” Hasan, a 23-year-old Syrian, said in a statement reported by Kathimerini daily and quoted by Ephe.
Searches will continue this Sunday, five days after the sinking, but authorities believe the chances of finding anyone alive are slim to none.
27,000 missing since 2014
The survivors were taken to the detention center of Malakasa, on the outskirts of Athens, to be identified and from where they can apply for asylum.
According to testimonies, the old trawler’s engine began to show problems since the second day of the voyage and in the early hours of Wednesday morning, when the vessel was southwest of the Peloponnese peninsula, water began to set.
According to collected testimonies, the migrants then moved to the other side of the boat, where there was no water, causing the ship to capsize.
Other testimonies cited by Efe indicate that the Greek Coast Guard tried to launch a line ahead of the trawler hours before the sinking, but the people on board refused help, wanting to continue their journey to Italy.
The migrant tragedy, one of the largest ever in the Mediterranean, has once again led to criticism of the European Union by international organizations and NGOs critical of its migration policies.
“Let’s be clear, this is not a Greek problem. It’s a European problem,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday.
“If countries do not commit to creating conditions for orderly and regular migration, migrants will end up in the hands of traffickers and the consequences will be as tragic as yesterday,” he added.
According to data from the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants Project, nearly 27,000 migrants have gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014.
Source: DN
