Kalamata, Greece
CNN
—
Kassem Abozeed had arrived in Kalamata to try to find his wife and his brother-in-law, while his relatives flocked to the Greek port city on Thursday, in search of their missing loved ones after a migrant boat sank off the coastkilling dozens of people.
The 34-year-old refugee fled the Syrian civil war to Hamburg, Germany, in 2016. He told reporters that his 21-year-old partner, Ezma, and his 19-year-old brother, Abdullah, were two of the passengers. caught in one of the biggest migrant ship disasters in southern Europe this year.
“I tried to bring my wife to Germany, but it was very difficult to do it legally. So we tried to go through Libya,” Abozeed said.
“The last time we spoke was eight days ago and she told me she was ready to get on the boat. She paid $5,000.
He reflects on his relationship with his wife. “It was a love story.”
Family members gather at the southern Greek port as hopes for survivors fade and the scale of the tragedy begins to sink in.
At least 78 people have died after the ship sank on Wednesday, with campaigners warning there could be hundreds more on board, meaning the death toll could rise.
A total of 104 passengers were rescued and sent to Kalamata, as rescuers struggled to contain the fallout.
Authorities warned that the likelihood of finding survivors was decreasing as the boat sank in “very deep” water.
“A sudden change in weight is probably the cause of what led the boat to capsize and then sink,” Hellenic Coast Guard spokesperson Nikos Alexiou told CNN on Thursday.
“As the incident occurred in very deep waters, it is unclear how operations will continue beyond the current stage.”
Rescuers should soon end their search for survivors, according to Thanasis Vasilopoulos, the mayor of Kalamata. “It is difficult to see search and rescue operations continuing for much longer,” he said. “Unfortunately, we found no survivors today. The waters in the area where the incident occurred are very deep. It is difficult to imagine finding any survivors at this time. »
Those rescued – all of whom are men – include 43 Egyptian nationals, 47 Syrian nationals, 12 Pakistani nationals and two Palestinians, the Hellenic Coast Guard said. Eight of the people rescued were minors.
There were about 750 passengers on the ship, including at least 40 children, according to a spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration.
“If these figures were confirmed, it would be the second most serious shipwreck in the Mediterranean,” tweeted Flavio Di Giacomo.
Hellenic Coast Guard
A migrant ship photographed by the Greek coast guard on June 13 sank in the Mediterranean on Wednesday.
The Mediterranean region, close to Greece, is a key route for migrants and refugees trying to flee political conflicts in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
The number of undocumented people arriving on European shores has soared this year due to conflict, global inequality and the climate crisis, exacerbating the migrant crisis across the continent.
More than 36,000 people arrived in the Mediterranean between January and March this year, almost double the number compared to the same period in 2022, according to figures from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).
The capsized ship had departed from the Libyan port city of Tobruk, state broadcaster ERT reported. He was heading to Italy, Greek officials said.
Poor communications lines spoiled initial efforts to contact the boat, which received water from a merchant ship Tuesday evening local time after the first distress call.
Rescue volunteers described frantic scenes Thursday as they tried to comfort traumatized survivors sheltering in a makeshift warehouse in Kalamata.
Hypocrates Efstathiou, a social worker with Greek NGO IASIS, said the mental state of those rescued was “intense”.
“They really need support. People are still in shock. They described their attempts to survive. And they ask for relatives. From their accounts, it appears there were women and children on board,” he told CNN while helping survivors on the ground.
Dimitris Chaliotis, a Hellenic Red Cross volunteer, said he had “never seen a rescue operation like this before.” This is a tragedy,” according to a statement from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
Another volunteer, Maria Triantou, said many survivors were in “a state of anxiety” after the incident.
“These people had not eaten for several days, had not drunk water for several days and were burned by the sun,” a member of the Greek rescue team told CNN Greece, affiliated with CNN.
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Triantou told CNN the men were “dehydrated and had breathing problems, but things are normalizing now.”
Once survivors began to recover, fear and panic set in, she added. “Now they want to know what happened to others, including their family members. »
CNN saw several people arriving at the port looking for loved ones.
A man who said he was Egyptian but refused to speak to the press briefly explained that he had come to pick up his cousin. He looked nervously behind the fenced area of the port warehouse, where the survivors were temporarily resting.
They are expected to be moved to larger facilities in greater Athens, local authorities said.
Aid agencies said the boat disaster was a damning indictment of EU countries’ failure to create “safe pathways to protection” for refugees.
Frido Herinckx, director of operations of the International Federation, highlighted how it was “heartbreaking and simply unacceptable that these people, who were seeking security and a better future, died at the EU borders in 2023”.
The first quarter of 2023 has already been “the deadliest ever recorded on the Central Mediterranean route and this tragedy could be one of the worst ever recorded as the search for the missing continues”, Herinckx said.
“Each and every life lost should be on our collective conscience due to the failure to provide safe pathways to protection. »
IFRC President Francesco Rocca described the sinking as “the icon of the failure of the international community”.
“It is shocking and unacceptable that people are still dying at EU borders, looking for a safe place,” Rocca tweeted on Thursday.
