Protests have been held across Greece following the tragic shipwreck on Wednesday that claimed the lives of at least 78 migrants.
Greek anti-racist organizations, unions and others on Thursday staged rallies in cities including Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Karditsa and Kalamata, protesting the tragic shipwreck off the coast of the Peloponnese that cost the lives of at least 78 migrants.
“They made the Mediterranean a liquid cemetery; we will never get used to the slaughterhouse,” read banners held by protesters condemning Greek and European refugee and migration policy.
Early on Wednesday, the Greek coast guard began a rescue operation of a fishing boat with 400 to 750 people allegedly on board in international waters 47 nautical miles southwest of Pylos.
The rescue operation has continued but no new survivors have been found. A total of 104 people have been rescued.
A total of 68 of the rescued migrants have been transferred to Malakasa reception facility in central Greece. In the meantime, relatives from various European countries are arriving to find their loved ones.
The authorities have arrested nine Egyptians as suspects for trafficking who are accused of forming a criminal organization to enable the illegal entry of migrants, causing a shipwreck and endangering lives.
The Greek authorities have been accused of not immediately reacting to rescue the migrants.
Watch The Med Alarm Phone, a hotline for boat people in distress, wrote that the Greek authorities had been warned many hours before the boat capsized that it was in distress.
At 16:13 CET, Watch The Med Alarm Phone got the vessel’s coordinates while at 16:53 Greek time, it said: “We notify the Greek authorities by email as well as other agencies, including Frontex and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Greece.”
However, Greek media reported that when the coast guard used a rope to tie the fishing boat, some of those on board untied it because they wanted to continue their journey to Italy.
A coast guard press release stated that Italian authorities informed them about the vessel, which was spotted by a EU border protection agency FRONTEX aerial vehicle and by two ships. A Greek boat sailed to the spot, while a helicopter took off at the same time.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Europe to impose a more effective migration policy to prevent the recurrence of similar disasters in the future.
“We are in contact with the Greek authorities, but let’s be honest. This is not a Greek problem. It is European. I think it is time for Europe to be able, in solidarity, to define an effective immigration policy so that such an accident does not happen again,” said Guterres.
