Migrant Boat Tragedy Death Toll Rises To Hundreds; ‘No Hope Of Survivors’ (Worthy News Radio)
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
KALAMATA, GREECE (Worthy News) – Greek authorities said Thursday that more than 500 migrants, including many children, were believed to have died after their overloaded fishing boat capsized and sank off southern Greece.
There was no hope of finding more survivors, making it one of Europe’s worst-ever migrant disasters, according to officials. The tragedy happened in deep waters about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the southern coastal town of Pylos.
Greek authorities said 104 survivors brought ashore were being brought to a refugee camp near Athens, the capital.
Most of these exhausted people had earlier bedded in sleeping bags and blankets provided by rescuers in a large warehouse close to the Greek port city of Kalamata. “We are in a very difficult psychological situation right now,” said Erasmia Roumana of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.
“They are under shock, so I think that the medical and psychological needs of the people as well as their communications with their families is their biggest concern. They want to tell their families that they are well,” she added.
Authorities said around 26 survivors were treated in hospital, mainly for hypothermia. The transfer of the dead to Athens has also begun, state broadcaster ERT reported.
Search efforts continued through the night and continued on Thursday but to no avail. “Neither survivors nor further victims were discovered during the night,” a Greek coastguard spokesman said.
MANY DROWN
He told a Greek broadcaster that it is assumed the people below deck could not save themselves when the boat sank. Greek officials put the fatalities at more than 500 but admitted they would never be sure.
The figures were based on information from survivors and estimates from the coastguard as to how many people were crammed onto the vessel.
Media quoted survivors saying more than 700 could have been on board, including some 100 children who were in the hold and likely drowned.
Outside the coast guard office in Kalamata, where survivors were being taken initially, a Syrian man whose wife was missing after the shipwreck was seeking answers.
Kassam Abozeed, who lives in Germany, told reporters he last heard from his wife, Israa, eight days ago. She had paid $4,500 to travel on the boat, the 34-year-old said, showing a photograph of her on his phone.
Before the boat began to flounder late on Tuesday night, authorities said that people on the vessel’s crowded outer deck repeatedly turned down attempted assistance from a Greek coast guard. Many came from Egypt, wartorn Syria, and Pakistan.
They wanted to be among the 72,000 refugees and migrants who authorities said somehow reached Europe’s frontline countries, Italy, Spain, Greece, Malta, and Cyprus, this year.
The people on board the boat that sank this week wanted to reach Italy, hoping to find a better life, authorities said. But those dreams ended for most in the waters of the Aegean Sea.
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