SEVENTEEN MEMBERS OF Greece’s Hellenic Coast Guard have been charged over their response to the deadliest Mediterranean migrant shipwreck in decades.

The Adriana, a ship destined for Italy carrying more than 750 people, sank in Greece’s rescue zone in international waters in June 2023. Only 82 bodies were recovered and 104 people survived. 

The boat was sailing from Tobruk in Libya. As well as Syrians and Palestinians, it was carrying nearly 350 Pakistanis, according to the Pakistani government.

Survivors said the coastguard failed to respond adequately when the rusty and overloaded trawler went down that night. 

According to the survivors, the Coast Guard eventually responded and while towing the vessel, it finally capsized and sank 47 nautical miles off the coast of Pylos.

Greek authorities have always denied the claims against them but the deputy prosecutor of the Piraeus Naval Court has found that the 17 members of the Hellenic Coast Guard should face criminal charges.

One of them is the captain of a coastguard ship. He is charged with “causing a shipwreck”, leading to the deaths of “at least 82 people”.

The head of the Coast Guard at the time and the supervisor of the National Search and Rescue Coordination Centre are also among four officials charged with “exposing others to danger”.

The captain of the Coast Guard ship, the LS-920, is also charged with “dangerous interference of maritime transport” as well as a “failure to provide assistance” to the boat.

The crew of the Coast Guard ship are charged for “simple complicity” in all the acts allegedly committed by the captain.

Six rights groups in a statement last week called the decision to prosecute “a significant and obvious development in the path towards justice and accountability for the victims”.

Among the 104 survivors, dozens filed a group criminal complaint, alleging the coastguard took hours to mount a response when the boat was in trouble, despite warnings from EU border agency Frontex and the NGO Alarm Phone.

The Coast Guard has said it communicated with people on board the Adriana who “refused any help”, rendering any rescue operation in high seas risky.

But lawyers for the survivors have said the Coast Guard chose to dispatch just a patrol boat from Crete – and not a larger rescue tugboat stationed closer by at the port of Gytheion in the Peloponnese region.

The patrol boat’s voyage data recorder was damaged and was only repaired two months after the accident, they said – nor was there any video footage from the patrol boat.

Separately, the EU’s border enforcement agency, Frontex, opened an investigation in April into multiple alleged human rights violations by Greece in dealing with irregular immigration.

The agency said it is reviewing 12 alleged serious incidents that mostly occurred in 2024.

In a January ruling, the European Court of Human Rights described Greece’s use of summary expulsions of asylum seekers, known as pushbacks, as systematic. UN experts have also urged Greece to ensure its border policies are transparent and impartial. 

The central Mediterranean is the world’s deadliest migration route, where more than 25,000 people have died or gone missing since 2014.

With reporting from AFP 

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