The boat’s passengers communicated with their relatives via satellite phone, and they said on Monday that a leak had been detected in the boat. The human rights organization, Alarm Phone, reported that it contacted the authorities in Malta with a request to start search and rescue efforts, but the authorities did not give their answer to this request. The organization also claims that Malta prohibited a cargo ship passing by to pick up the passengers on the sinking fishing boat – a claim to which the state did not respond.
More in-
As mentioned, the asylum seekers on the boat were in contact with their relatives and reported the death of three children, the last of them yesterday, but since then contact with them has been lost and it is still unknown what happened to them. They may have been rescued by another cargo ship passing by: Greek authorities report 60 asylum seekers arrived on the shores of Crete last night on a cargo ship after being rescued from a sinking vessel. The identity between the number of passengers in the two boats and the description of the sinking vessel certainly provides reason to believe that these are the same people, but this hypothesis still has no official confirmation. Also, boats loaded with asylum seekers make their way to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea on a regular basis – and often the dangerous journey ends with the vessel capsizing or sinking.