Survivors of Pylos shipwreck move court against Greek authorities

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) – At least 40 survivors of the Pylos shipwreck which took place on June 14, 2023, off southern Greece filed a criminal complaint before a Greek court, a major rights group announced on Thursday.

The survivors, represented by the Network for Refugee and Migrant Rights, the Hellenic League for Human Rights (HLHR), the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR), the Initiative of Lawyers and Jurists for the shipwreck of Pylos, and Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), claimed that the Greek authorities failed to immediately intervene and rescue the passengers on board under international and domestic laws, the GCR said in a statement.

“This was especially due to the fact that they had been informed from the outset and subsequently ascertained at a close distance the imminent threat to life facing passengers on board the manifestly unseaworthy and overcrowded trawler,” the statement added.

Furthermore, the complainants claimed the Greek authorities not only refrained from taking the necessary rescue measures as soon as the vessel was sighted but instead proceeded to an effort to tow the vessel which resulted in its capsizing and eventually sinking.

Reminding that numerous international organizations have already urged Greece to carry out a full and effective investigation into the conditions of the shipwreck, they demanded an immediate, extensive, and credible investigation to fix responsibility for the acts and omissions of the Greek authorities.

On June 14, the 30-meter-long fishing boat capsized and sank about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Greece’s southern coastal town of Pylos, with the majority of people on board from Pakistan, Syria, and Libya.

There were 104 survivors, with 82 bodies recovered out of 400-700 migrants on board. The rest are missing or considered dead or both.