Victims’ relatives protest alleged “Coast Guard negligence” in Agathonisi shipwreck

Protesters gathered in Syntagma Square in downtown Athens on Wednesday in order to denounce what they call “criminal negligence of the Greek Coast Guard” during the tragic boat incident off Agathonisi in March.

Sixteen people, among them several children, lost their lives when a boat carrying migrants and refugees capsized.

Survivors have claimed that the Greek authorities initially ignored the emergency calls.

According to a report by German magazine Der Spiegel the three boat wreck survivors said passengers had called the international emergency number and also sent text messages. “Another boat was nearby,” survivors claimed by they could not say what kind of boat it was.

The Ministers of Migration and Maritime visited the survivors at the hospital on the island of Samos. Two women, one form Afghanistan and one from Irak, as well as one Iraqi man, demanded answers as to why they had to see their families disappear in the waters of the Aegean Sea.

Shocking testimonies by Agathonisi survivors: “I was breastfeeding my baby and it was gone…”

The Migration minister had no answer as to why a Search & Rescue operation was not launched in time. He assured them that everything that needs to be done is done in order to save lives.

Maritime Minister, Panagiotis Kourboublis, obviously had been briefed by the Coast Guard about the incident. The Coast Guard had said that it tried several times to contact callers but “nobody

The protest was organized by local solidarity groupranswered” its phone calls.

pictures via @savvaskarmaniolas

“One boat would have been enough to save them. That’s everything. I just want justice, only justice,” a relative of the victims told journalist Savvas Karmaniolas. Watch video here

The protest was organized by local solidarity groups and victims’ relatives.