Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The audio instructions leaked by the Greek rescue coordinators have put more doubts about the official version of Greece’s events in the hours before a migrant ship sank along with up to 650 people on board.
The Adriana fell in the early hours of June 14, 2023 in international waters, but within the rescue zone of Greece, after leaving Libya days before.
The survivors then told the BBC that the coastguards had caused their overcrowded fishing boat to overthrow In a failed attempt to tow it and then forced the witnesses to remain silent.
The Greek coast guard denied these statements and argues that he did not try to rescue the aboard because they were not in danger and said they had wanted to voluntarily reach Italy, not Greece.
But in a phone call that now emerged, it is heard that an unnamed man who speaks from the inside of a Greek rescue coordination center is heard to instruct the captain of the migrant boat that tells a ship that is about that on board they do not want to reach Greece.
The Coast Guard has not commented on the audio, but said that he had delivered all the available evidence to a naval court that is investigating the disaster.
The sinking was one of the worst disasters that is known to be known in the Mediterranean Sea.
It is estimated that the boat carried up to 750 migrants when it started from the port of Tobruk in Libya almost a week before.
Eighty -two bodies were recovered, but the United Nations believes that 500 additional people, including 100 women and children who were in the hands of the boat, may have died.
Audio recordings Obtained by the Greek website News247.gr Reveal telephone calls that involve the Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) in the Port of Pireo, near the capital of Athens.
In the first call, at 18:50 local time (15:50 GMT) on June 13, an officer is heard explaining the man who pilots the migrant ship that a large red boat will soon approach to supply and that it must explain that migrants do not want to reach Greece.
Officer 1:
- The boat addresses you to give you fuel, water and food. And in an hour we send you a second boat, okay?
- Tell the captain to Big Red Ship “We don’t want to go to Greece.” OK?
The responses of the man who captain the migrant boat are not heard.
In a second call, 90 minutes later, at 22:10, an apparently different officer from the same coordination center, speaks to the captain of the lucky sailor (the “great red ship”).
Officer 2:
Ok, captain, I’m sorry before I couldn’t hear you. I couldn’t understand what you told me. You told me that you gave them food, water and they told you that they don’t want to stay in Greece and that they want to go to Italy, don’t they want anything else?
Captain of Lucky Sailor:
Yes, because I asked them about Megaphone “Greece or Italy?” And all there shout Italy.
Officer 2:
Aah, ok, ok, everyone shouts that they don’t want Greece and want Italy?
Captain of Lucky Sailor:
Yes, yes, yes.
Officer 2:
OK
Captain of Lucky Sailor:
They are all like people full of people, covered very full and complete.
Officer 2:
OK, Captain. So have you finished with the supplies?
Captain of Lucky Sailor:
Yes, sir, yes.
Officer 2:
Captain, I want this, I want this to write it in your registration book. The bridge registration book.
Captain of Lucky Sailor:
Yes, ok, we will write it.
Officer 2:
OK?
Captain of Lucky Sailor:
Yeah
Officer 2:
I want you to write it that they do not want to stay in Greece and that they want to go to Italy. They don’t want anything about Greece and want to go to Italy.
Captain of Lucky Sailor:
Ok, yes, yes.
Another ship, the faithful warrior, also gave some supplies to the migrant ship, but no more conversations have emerged between their captain and the Greek authorities.
The Greek coast guard did not comment on the content of the conversations, but told the BBC that he had presented “all the material he had in his possession, including the audio recordings and the newspapers of the events” to the office of the Prosecutor of the Maritime Court, which he is investigating.
He said that he had rescued more than a quarter of a million migrants in danger in the sea in the last decade and arrested more than a thousand smuggers, and that his humanitarian work had been recognized internationally.
Our BBC research in immediate days after sinking challenged the explanation of the Greek authorities For disaster.
The analysis of the movement of other ships in the area suggests that the superpoblated fishing container did not move for at least seven hours before it turned.
The Coast Guard has always insisted that during these hours the boat was in a course in Italy and did not need a ransom.
Last year, A Greek court threw charges against nine Egyptian men who were accused of causing the wreck.
The judges in the Port City of southern Kalamata ruled that they had no jurisdiction to listen to the case, on the land that the ship sank into international waters.
The accusation had shown that the defendants were being prosecuted for evidence that had already been contradicted by at least six survivors, who told the BBC that the Coast Guard had caused their boat to turn to and then press them to frame the Egyptians.
The human rights lawyer, Dimitris Choulis, who represented some of the accused Egyptians, said he was not surprised by what these recordings.
“We know about the tactics of the coast guard to go back or not rescue people.”
He said that there had been “an cover -up attempt from day one.”
“They (the Greek authorities) told the story” they did not want to be rescued “and, therefore, they have insulted the memory of so many dead people,” he told the BBC.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have said they have strong reservations on the integrity of Greek research and have requested international investigation.
The defender of the Greek people, an independent authority eliminated from the government, has been looking at the accusations.
The disaster is also being examined by the Greek Naval Court.
