Leaked audio casts doubt on Greek coastguard's account of Pylos shipwreck
Leaked audio recordings have revealed that Greek rescue coordinators instructed the captain of the Adriana fishing boat, which capsized off the coast of Greece killing up to 650 people, to tell an approaching ship that those on board did not want to go to Greece.
The overcrowded trawler was carrying around 750 people when it sank off the coast of Greece's Peloponnese peninsula in the early hours of 14 June 2023, in one of the deadliest refugee boat wrecks in years.
Only 104 people survived. Eighty two bodies were recovered, and over 500 are still missing, including 100 women and children who were in the hold of the boat.
Reports by rights groups and watchdogs, based on survivors' testimonies, pointed to the role of the Hellenic Coast Guard in precipitating the wreck, by first delaying its rescue response and then attempting to tow the boat.
The coastguard has repeatedly denied these claims, maintaining that the people aboard were not at risk and did not request assistance and insisted they wanted to go to Italy and not Greece.
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But the latest revelations cast doubt on their account of the events preceding the wreck.
In a series of recorded phonecalls obtained by Greek news site News247.org, an unnamed man is heard instructing Adriana's captain to tell an approaching ship that those on board do not want to reach Greece.
'Tell them: We don't want to go to Greece'
In the first call recorded at 18:51 on 13 June 2023, an officer receives the location of the Adriana, but in the background another officer, who is seemingly unaware he is being recorded, can be heard saying to the ship's captain:
"The ship is approaching you to give you fuel, water and food. And in an hour we'll send a second ship, okay? Tell the captain of the big red ship 'we don't want to go to Greece', okay?'
In a second conversation at 20:10, another officer at the centre speaks to the captain of the Lucky Sailor, the 'big red ship' described in the previous call.
Charges dropped against Egyptians in Pylos migrant shipwreck case Read More »
In the call, the officer insists that the Lucky Sailor records in the logbook the fact that he heard the people aboard the Adriana say they wanted to go to Italy.
'I want you to write about the fact that they don't want to stay in Greece and they want to go to Italy. They don't want anything from Greece and they want to go to Italy,' he said.
The call recordings also reveal that between 23:34 and 02:01, there is no recorded communication between the coordination centre, the ships near the Adriana, and the fishing trawler itself - despite the coastguard's official press release stating that they had been informed about the vessel at 11am on 13 June.
Even this claim is being questioned as it contradicts a statement from Frontex, the European border agency, which said that one of its aircraft located the vessel at 9:47am and 'immediately informed the Greek and Italian authorities about the sighting, providing them with information about the condition of the vessel, speed and photos'.
The Adriana sank at 2:06am. The order for a search and rescue operation was issued 15 minutes later.
The Greek coastguard did not comment on the findings, but said it had handed over 'all the material it had in its possession' to the Maritime Court Prosecutor's Office which is investigating the wreck.
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