Authority has revealed the Greek coastguard is responsible for the deaths of dozens of migrants crossing the Mediterranean who were forced to turn back or in some cases were deliberately thrown overboard.
ONE OF THE WORST MEDITERRANEAN BOAT DISASTERS ON RECORD
More than 40 people traversing the Mediterranean on small boats are said to have died due to the Greek coastguard’s activities, which included forcing punctured vessels to go back out to sea.
According to eyewitnesses from Turkish coastguard, which often receive migrants turned away by Greece: ‘Nine of those people are believed to have died after they were deliberately pushed into the water by coastguard officers.’
It comes just days after hundreds of demonstrators rallied in Athens on Friday to mark the one-year anniversary of a shipwreck that killed hundreds more migrants off Greece, demanding answers about the causes of the disaster and the fate of relatives.
Up to 700 migrants from Pakistan, Syria, and Egypt were crammed into fishing trawler ‘Adriana’ bound for Italy from Libya that capsized off southwestern Greece on June 14 last year, even though the Greek coast guard had been monitoring it for hours.
Some 104 people were rescued, but only 82 bodies were recovered.
