At least 79 people killed after boat carrying migrants sinks off coast of southern Greece

At least 79 people have died and dozens are feared missing off the coast of southern Greece after a fishing boat carrying migrants capsized and sank, authorities said Wednesday.

A large search and rescue operation was launched in the area. Authorities said 104 people have been rescued so far following the nighttime incident some 75 kilometres southwest of Greece's southern Peloponnese region.

The spot is close to the deepest area of the Mediterranean Sea — and such depths could hamper any effort to locate a sunken metal vessel.

Twenty-five survivors were hospitalized with symptoms of hypothermia.

At the southern port of Kalamata, around 70 exhausted survivors bedded down in sleeping bags and blankets provided by rescuers in a large warehouse, while outside paramedics set up tents for anyone who needed first aid.

Katerina Tsata, head of a Red Cross volunteer group in Kalamata, said the migrants were also given psychological support.

"They suffered a very heavy blow, both physical and mental," she said.

The Greek coast guard said 79 bodies have been recovered so far. It said the survivors included 30 people from Egypt, 10 from Pakistan, 35 from Syria and two who are Palestinians.

The Italy-bound boat is believed to have sailed from the Tobruk area in eastern Libya. The Italian coast guard first alerted Greek authorities and Frontex about the approaching vessel on Tuesday.

Ship refused assistance before sinking: officials

After that first alert, Frontex aircraft and two merchant ships spotted the boat heading north at high speed, according to the Greek coast guard. More aircraft and ships were sent to the area. But repeated calls to the vessel offering help were declined, the coast guard said in a statement.

"In the afternoon, a merchant vessel approached the ship and provided it with food and supplies, while the [passengers] refused any further assistance," it said.

A second merchant ship that approached it later offered further supplies and assistance, which were turned down, it said. In the evening, a coast guard patrol boat reached the vessel "and confirmed the presence of a large number of migrants on the deck," the statement said. "But they refused any assistance and said they wanted to continue to Italy."

The coast guard boat accompanied the migrant vessel, which, the statement said, capsized and sank early Wednesday, prompting a massive rescue operation by all the ships in the area.

Efi Latsoudi, a volunteer with the group Refugee Support Aegean, currently in Lesbos, Greece, said the coast guard statement may not be telling the whole story.

"We have an official version [of what happened]. But I believe that if we have access and we investigate and we support the victims and they feel safe to talk about what happened, maybe we will have another version," the human rights activist told CBC's As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

She also said there should be a better response to help migrants at sea.

"All the policy about refugees and migrants is a deterrence policy in Greece and in Europe. So people are trying to arrive and they take so many dangerous routes," Latsoudi said.

"We all understand that this can be prevented if we create safe routes for these people to arrive."

At the southern port of Kalamata, dozens of rescued migrants were taken to sheltered areas set up by the ambulance services and the United Nations Refugee Agency to receive dry clothes and medical attention.

Libyan authorities have launched a major crackdown on migrants earlier this month across eastern Libya. Activists have said several thousand migrants, including Egyptians, Syrians, Sudanese and Pakistanis, have been detained. Libyan authorities deported many Egyptians to their home country through a land crossing point.

In western Libya, authorities have raided migrant hubs in the capital, Tripoli, and other towns over the past few weeks. At least 1,800 migrants were detained and taken to government-run detention centres, according to the UN refugee agency.

Mediterranean smugglers are increasingly taking larger boats into international waters off the Greek mainland to try to avoid local coast guard patrols.

Deadly incidents at levels not seen in 6 years

On Sunday, 90 migrants on a U.S.-flagged yacht were rescued in the area after they made a distress call.

Separately on Wednesday, a yacht with 81 migrants on board was towed to a port on the south coast of Greece's island of Crete after authorities received a distress call.

The latest incident comes as the UN migration agency reported on Tuesday that 2022 was the deadliest for migrants in the Middle East and North Africa seeking to reach Europe since 2017.

About 3,800 people died on sea and land migration routes within and from the Middle East-North Africa region, according to data released by the International Organization for Migration's (IOM) Missing Migrants Project. That's 11 per cent higher compared to 2021 and the highest since 2017, when the project documented the deaths of 4,255 people in the region.

The first three months of 2023 were the deadliest first quarter since 2017, the same agency has reported, with 441 documented migrant deaths.

"The situation in the Mediterranean has been a humanitarian crisis for over a decade now," IOM spokesperson Safa Msehli said in April. "And the fact that deaths continue on its own is very alarming, but the fact that that's increased is extremely alarming because it means that very little concrete action was taken to address the issue."