Kalamata Coast Guard launches inquiry into deadly migrant shipwreck

The Kalamata Coast Guard on Thursday announced the launch of an inquiry into the sinking of a boat carrying hundreds of migrants in international waters off the coast of the Peloponnese, 47 nautical miles southwest of Pylos.

“There is not a specific number of arrests of persons suspected of being the traffickers of the irregular migrants on board the fatal fishing boat,” the Coast Guard said in a statement on Thursday.

It also amended the confirmed body count, saying the number of bodies recovered was 78 and not 79.

Meanwhile, a search-and-rescue operation to locate more persons missing at sea continued through the night in the area around the shipwreck, without success, as the number of persons rescued remains at 104 and no new dead bodies were recovered. Two coast guard vessels, a helicopter and six ships sailing in the area were participating in the search.

About 30 dead bodies were loaded onto refrigerator trucks at Kalamata port and samples will be taken from them for DNA analysis to aid in identification. The survivors that were not taken to hospital spent the night in a specially adapted area in the port.

Police, fire brigade and coast guard vehicles and personnel arrived at the port early in the morning to provide assistance in the operation, along with trucks bringing food and water.

Talking to the state-run Athens-Macedonian News Agency, a nurse with the Hellenic Red Cross in Kalamata, Katerina Tsata, said that the first night had gone well and some of those taken to hospital had already returned. She noted that the survivors were exhausted, both physically and mentally, and in need of psychosocial support, while many had been prescribed medication that the Red Cross was preparing to procure for them.

The survivors of the shipwreck are all men, aged between 16 and 40 years old, and the problems reported were mainly hypothermia, fainting and hypoglycemic episodes and pneumonia.

In the meantime, relatives who fear their loved ones were on board the fishing vessel have been desperately appealing for information, with some arriving in Kalamata port. One man living in Germany was looking for his 18-year-old brother, whom he had last spoken to six days earlier and knew only that he set off from Syria to reach Italy.

Another man based in Cyprus knew that his nephew had been on board the fishing boat but was unable to find him among the survivors.

[AMNA]