Authorities in Greece have detained 9 individuals, all Egyptian nationals, for piloting the fishing vessel filled with migrants which sank off the Greek coast on Wednesday. Thought of to be one of many worst disasters within the Mediterranean, authorities have confirmed the dying of 78 individuals and several other lots of lacking.
In accordance with reviews, upto 100 youngsters had been travelling within the ship’s maintain. The Guardian reported that the accused, aged between 20 and 40, had been suspected of masterminding the unlawful voyage of lots of of individuals to Italy from Libya after first setting out from Egypt with the trawler. The publication quoted Nikos Alexiou, the Hellenic coastguard spokesperson as saying, “They’re in custody and can seem earlier than an area Justice of the Peace. They’re being held by the coastguard in Kalamata.”
In accordance with reviews, the ship’s captain died within the incident. Authorities anticipated to press a number of expenses, together with mass homicide, in opposition to suspects.
Greece’s coast guard launched its third and ultimate day of a search on Friday within the space the place the fishing boat sank. The round the clock effort continued off the coast of southern Greece regardless of little hope of discovering survivors or our bodies after none have been discovered since Wednesday, when 78 our bodies had been recovered and 104 folks had been rescued.
A lot of the survivors had been being moved Friday to migrant shelters close to Athens from a storage hangar on the southern port of Kalamata, the place family members additionally gathered to search for family members.
Alexiou, citing survivors’ accounts, mentioned that passengers within the maintain of the fishing boat included girls and kids however that the variety of lacking, believed to be within the lots of, stays unclear.
The fishing boat carrying the migrants had been travelling from Libya to Italy and was being tracked by the Greek authorities in addition to European Union border safety company Frontex.
Officers at a state-run morgue outdoors Athens have been photographing the faces of the victims and gathering DNA samples to start out the identification course of.
(With PTI inputs.)
