24hrs before the elections 🗳️

Dear reader,

This us our weekly round-up from Greece.

The world ‘celebrated’ World Refugee Day on the 20th of June, haunted by the ghosts of those who died in one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Greece, on 14 June 2023, under to-be-investigated conditions.

Doubt is increasingly cast on the Greek Coast Guard and how it handled the matter without this shaking responsibility off the EU regarding their migration policy. Following international reports citing evidence that the Greek Coast Guard did not react in the indicated way, Greek mainstream media embarked on a crusade to support the Greek authorities' side.

Greek officials even abandoned the country’s jurisdiction rights to shake off Greece’s responsibility. This tragic shipwreck that happened days before the Titanic sub accident (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) proves that not all lives matter equally.  

Contradictions. Too many contradictions

International media reports increasingly cast doubt on the Greek Coast Guard account of what happened, and the migrant boat carrying some 750 people sank off the coast of Greece on 14 June 2023, with most feared dead.  

The BBC was the first to break the news. “Analysis of the movement of other ships in the area suggests the overcrowded fishing vessel was not moving for at least seven hours before it capsized. The coastguard still claims that during these hours, the boat was on a course to Italy and did not need rescue,” they reported (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). 

BBC’s reporters Nick Beake and Kostas Kallergis investigated the tracking data provided by Marine Traffic -a maritime analytics platform- and obtained a computer animation.

The data “shows hours of activity focused on a small, specific area where the migrant boat later sank, casting doubt on the official claim it had no problems with its navigation. The fishing boat had no tracker, so it is not shown on the map. Neither are coastguard and military vessels which do not have to share their location.”

Nick Beake explained the findings, showing a video (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and suggesting the boat was not moving for at least seven hours before it capsized. Earlier, the coastguard captain who saw the migrant boat sink said it'd moved only 3.3 nautical miles in the previous 11 hours, while Greek authorities said the boat was on a steady course for Italy until it capsized.