Details of the tragedy, down to the name of the fishing trawler, remained murky for days. Surveillance footage released by FRONTEX, the European border agency, then revealed that the boat was under Greek coastguard surveillance for at least two hours before it capsized.
The coastguard has since confirmed it did indeed have the boat under surveillance ‘from a close distance’, but did not attempt to intervene even while the boat rocked aggressively on the waves of the Mediterranean Sea. But survivors say that the agency did in fact act – an enforcement boat tried to attach themselves to the boat three times before finally towing it and allegedly causing it to capsize.
The full number of those who died may never be known – because there was no official manifest on the vessel – but at least 104 people were rescued.
