HRW, Amnesty International call for independent investigation into Greek migrant boat tragedy

Calling for an investigation into the June sinking of a migration boat off the coast of Greece leading to the deaths of over 600 people, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued a joint statement on Thursday.

The rights organizations cited clear contradictions between the accounts of survivors and the Greek authorities' official explanation of how the incident took place.

On June 18, a boat that had departed from Libya with around 750 migrants on board sank in proximity to a Greek coast guard vessel off the coast of Pylos. Its whereabouts had been known by various European authorities days prior. Only 104 of its passengers escaped to safety, 82 bodies were discovered, and the rest are presumed dead.

While survivor accounts indicated that the Greek coastguard played a role in sinking the boat by attempting to drag it, causing it to capsize and sink completely in less than 15 minutes, Greek authorities vehemently denied this, claiming that the migrants had repeatedly rejected offers to rescue those on board, a majority of whom were from Pakistan, at least 200 from Egypt, and others from Syria and Palestine were also on board.

Activists and refugee search and rescue organizations claimed they informed the Greek Coast Guard, the Greek Ministry of Transport, and search and rescue authorities in Greece, Malta, and Italy about the location of the boat and the number of migrants on board nearly a day before it sank, but none of the authorities intervened to save them.

Regardless, it is nine of the Egyptian survivors who face trial in Greece after the capsizing, on suspicion of setting up a criminal organization, manslaughter by negligence, exposure to danger, and causing a shipwreck, because they were on the crew of the sinking boat. These claims are denied by the nine survivors. 

The BBC claimed in July that the Greek coastguard was pressuring survivors to accuse the nine Egyptians seized with smuggling and responsibility for the boat's drowning.  

Families of three of the nine defendants previously told Mada Masr that their relatives were merely migrants trying to make it to Europe.

Abu Eyad, a relative of one of the nine Egyptians charged, Ahmed Abdel Khaleq, denied any participation in the crime, claiming that his relative arrived in Libya only ten days before the boat left. 

Ashraf Gamal, the brother of one of the defendants, Ahmed Gamal, maintains he paid for his brother's journey to Libya during Ramadan around three months ago. The same narrative was told by Ahmed Ezzat Khodary's brother.

According to a previous Mada Masr report, Greek authorities have committed several documented forced deportations of migrants, both in their territorial waters and in Greece's search and rescue zones, over the last decade, which is similar to an informal policy of the Greek Coast Guard since 2020 to push migrants out of their jurisdiction.