15 refugees died on Tuesday. Autopsy reports cast doubt on the Greek Coast Guard’s official version.
At least 15 dead refugees: This is the result of the collision with a Greek coast guard patrol boat off the island of Chios last Tuesday. Doubts about the version are now growing the Coast Guardhow the tragedy occurred.
The Coast Guard claims that at around 9pm local time on Tuesday, one of its patrol boats “was conducting a scheduled patrol and spotted a speedboat carrying foreign passengers heading towards the east coast of Chios.”
The driver of the speedboat ignored the light and sound signals of the Greek Coast Guard ship LS 1077. The boat carrying at least 39 migrants “instead turned around and rammed the right side of the Coast Guard vessel.” Due to “the force of the impact,” the migrant boat capsized, “causing all occupants to fall into the sea.”
Camera turned off
The operation of the on-board thermal imaging camera at the moment of the collision was “no longer necessary” after the migrant boat had already been discovered, according to the coast guard’s version. This brings back memories of the catastrophic shipwreck in June 2023 off the southwestern Greek coastal town of Pylos, in which around 600 refugees are believed to have died. The camera of the coast guard boat LS 920 operating there was also switched off off Pylos.
Like the Athens news site Tvxs.gr citing a source from the EU border protection agency FrontexFrontex has “repeatedly requested” the Greek authorities to video record their coast guard operations.
The Greek authorities would “not systematically implement” this, citing the protection of migrants’ personal data – a special case in the Mediterranean. And this despite the fact that there is money for the procurement of the cameras from two EU sources.
Strong blows
Meanwhile, forensic pathologists also determined through autopsies that all 15 deaths off Chios had severe traumatic brain and chest injuries caused by strong blows. Some victims died immediately, i.e. immediately after the collision.
None of the 15 deaths were due to drowning. Furthermore, after speaking to survivors, people reported that the LS 1077 “appeared in the middle of the night and passed over the migrants’ boat.” On top of that, there were no acoustic or visual signals from the patrol boat before the collision, as the coast guard claims.
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