LONDON: Leaked audio conversations involving Greek rescue officials have cast new doubt on the country’s claims surrounding one of the Mediterranean’s worst maritime disasters, when a migrant boat sank with up to 650 people onboard in 2023.
After leaving Libya days earlier, the Adriana capsized on June 14, 2023, in international waters that are part of Greece’s rescue zone, the BBC reported on Thursday.
Authorities recovered 82 bodies but the UN has estimated that about 500 other people, including 100 women and children, died in the disaster.
Survivors later told the BBC that Greek coast guards had caused the overcrowded fishing vessel to capsize after attempting to tow it.
Greek authorities also forced witnesses to stay silent, and framed nine Egyptian men who were accused of causing the disaster, survivors said.
The Greek coast guard has denied these claims and insisted that the Adriana was not in danger, and that those onboard wanted to reach Italy, not Greece.
The leaked phone call, however, shows that rescue coordinators coached the migrant boat’s captain and the crew of a nearby vessel on the version of events that was later highlighted officially by Greece.
Greek website News247.gr obtained the audio, which involves calls between the Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Athens and the Adriana, as well as the Lucky Sailor.
The first call sees an officer from the center telling the Adriana’s captain that a “big red ship” will soon approach the migrant boat to hand over supplies.
The officer says: “The boat proceeding to you in order to give you fuel, water and food. And in one hour we send you a second boat, OK? Tell captain to big red ship ‘We don’t want to go Greece.’ OK?” No reply is heard from the Adriana’s captain.
A second call involves a different rescue officer speaking to the captain of the Lucky Sailor, the “big red ship” mentioned in the first call.
The officer says: “OK, captain, sorry, before I couldn’t hear you. I couldn’t understand what did you say to me. You told me you gave them food, water and they told you that they don’t want to stay in Greece and they want to go to Italy, they don’t want anything else?”
The captain replies: “Yes because I asked them by megaphone ‘Greece or Italia?’ and everybody there screaming ‘Italia.’”
He was then instructed by the Greek rescue official to record the Adriana’s request in a logbook.
The Greek coast guard did not comment on the leaked recordings, but told the BBC that all relevant materials had been transferred to the Maritime Court Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating the disaster.
Previous BBC analysis of the capsizing suggested that the Adriana had not moved for at least seven hours before it sank.
The Greek coast guard has maintained that the boat was on course to Italy and did not require assistance.
A Greek court last year threw out charges against nine Egyptian men accused of causing the disaster, who survivors say were framed by authorities.
Dimitris Choulis, a human rights lawyer who represented some of the accused Egyptians, said: “We know about the coast guard’s tactics of either pushing back or not rescuing people.”
There has been “an attempted cover-up from day one,” he added. “They (Greek authorities) told the story ‘they did not want to be rescued’ and so have insulted the memory of so many dead people.”
Leading human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have cast doubt on Greece’s official version of events and have called for an international investigation into the disaster.
As well as the Greek Naval Court, the Greek Ombudsman is also investigating the allegations of a cover-up.
