Greece defends actions as 500 refugees feared dead in shipwreck

The Greek coast guard has defended its response to a ship that went down off the country's south coast and left more than 500 refugees and migrants presumed drowned.

Criticism mounted over Europe's years-long failure to prevent such tragedies.

Patrol boats and a helicopter spent a third day scouring the area of the Mediterranean Sea where the packed fishing vessel capsized early on Wednesday, in what the UN migration agency said could be the second deadliest migrant shipwreck recorded.

The deadliest occurred when a vessel capsized off the coast of Libya en route to Italy in April 2015, killing an estimated 1,100 people.

Greek coast guard spokesperson Nikos Alexiou said that both coast guard and private ships repeatedly offered by radio and loudspeaker to help the vessel on Wednesday while it was in international waters, also heading from Libya to Italy, but they were rejected.

Alexiou argued that any effort to tow the overcrowded trawler or move hundreds of unwilling people onto nearby ships would have been too dangerous.

"Υou will have a disturbance, and the people will surge — which, unfortunately is what happened in the end," Alexiou told state-run ERT TV. "You will have caused the accident."

Alexiou also said that, after accepting food from a merchant ship, the trawler's passengers rejected a rope bringing more from a second merchant ship "because they thought the whole process was a way for us to take them to Greece."

Greek authorities sent the first ship, the tanker Lucky Sailor, to give the refugees food and water.

The company managing the tanker said on Friday that the people on board "were very hesitant to receive any assistance, and at any attempt of approach the boat started to maneuver away."

Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Limited said in a statement that the people on the trawler were eventually persuaded to accept supplies.

Preventing deaths at sea

Experts said maritime law obligated Greek authorities to attempt a rescue.

They definitely "had a duty to start rescue procedures" given the condition of the vessel, said Professor Erik Rosaeg of the University of Oslo's Institute of Private Law.

He said a refusal of assistance can be overruled if deemed unreasonable, as it appeared to have been on Wednesday.

Flavio Di Giacomo of the Mediterranean office of the UN migration agency IOM tweeted that all refugee boats should be considered dangerous and rescued immediately because "even when they appear to have no problems, in a few minutes they can sink."

Rescuers pulled 104 survivors from the water and later recovered 78 bodies but have not located any more since late Wednesday.

The Greek coast guard said the search-and-rescue operation would continue beyond the standard 72 hours.

The UN's migration and refugee agencies issued a joint statement calling timely maritime search and rescues "a legal and humanitarian imperative" and calling for "urgent and decisive action to prevent further deaths at sea."

A group of nongovernmental organisations, including Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders, said the EU should "stop seeing solutions solely in the dismantling" of smuggling networks, and set up state-led search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean.

"The Greek government had specific responsibilities toward every passenger on the vessel, which was clearly in distress," Adriana Tidona of Amnesty International said.

"This is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions, all the more so because it was entirely preventable."

Greece and other southern EU nations that typically are the first destinations for Europe-bound asylum-seekers travelling by sea have toughened border protection measures in recent years, extending walls and intensifying maritime patrols.

"This is a European problem. I think it's time for Europe to be able, in solidarity, to define an effective migration policy for these kinds of situations not to happen again," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said during a news conference at UN headquarters in New York late Thursday.

The EU's executive commission says the 27-nation bloc is close to an agreement on how member countries can share responsibility in caring for migrants and refugees who undertake the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.

A judicial investigation is also under way into the causes of the sinking.

Greek officials say the vessel capsized minutes after it lost power, speculating that panic among the passengers may have caused the boat to list and roll over.