Nick Beake
Europe Correspondent
Kostas Kallergis
Senior Europe Producer
Leaked audio instructions by Greek rescue co-ordinators have cast further doubt on Greece’s official version of events in the hours before a migrant boat sank along with up to 650 people onboard.
The Adriana went down in the early hours of 14 June 2023 in international waters – but within Greece’s rescue zone – after leaving Libya days earlier.
Survivors later told the BBC that coastguards had caused their overcrowded fishing boat to capsize in a botched attempt to tow it and then forced witnesses to stay silent.
The Greek coastguard denied these claims and maintains it did not try to rescue those onboard because they were not in danger and said they had voluntarily wanted to reach Italy, not Greece.
But in a phone call that’s now emerged an unnamed man speaking from inside a Greek rescue coordination centre is heard instructing the captain of the migrant boat to tell an approaching ship that those onboard do not want to reach Greece.
The coastguard has not commented on the audio but said it had handed over all available evidence to a Naval Court which is investigating the disaster.
The sinking was one of the worst-ever disasters known to have happened in the Mediterranean Sea.
It is estimated the boat was carrying up to 750 migrants when it set off from the port of Tobruk in Libya nearly a week earlier.
Eighty-two bodies were recovered, but the United Nations believes an additional 500 people – including 100 women and children who were in the hold of the boat – may have died.
Audio recordings obtained by Greek website News247.gr reveal phone calls involving the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) at the port of Piraeus, near the capital Athens.
In the first call, at 18:50 local time (15:50 GMT) on 13 June, an officer is heard explaining to the man piloting the migrant boat that a large red vessel will soon be approaching to give supplies and that he should explain that the migrants do not want to reach Greece.
Officer 1:
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?
