exclusive
Based on new documents, the hours before the sinking of a refugee boat off Greece can be reconstructed even more precisely. research of NDR with international partners reinforce the suspicion that the Coast Guard was partly to blame.
When Issra Oun finally says goodbye, her mother is left crying. Cell phone videos show the 22-year-old saying goodbye to family and friends. The woman has been living in a camp for Syrian war refugees in Jordan for twelve years.
But she wants to go to her husband, who lives in Hamburg and works for Deutsche Post there. Issra had taken a German test in order to be able to apply for family reunification. Without success. She has not attended school since she was ten years old.
“Take care!”
The probably last photos of her are from June 9th. They show her with her brother and a friend in the evening light by the water in the Libyan port city of Tobruk. The ship leaves there. While she is still on the boat, her husband writes one last time before departure: “Take care of yourself!” To the last he had wanted to dissuade her from choosing the route across the Mediterranean.
Issra Oun is now sitting on an old fishing boat with more than 700 other people. If you are on deck, you have to pay the smugglers several thousand euros, for a place below deck it is less. “The barge was already in distress when it set sail,” says Stefan Krüger, Professor of Ship Safety in Hamburg.
Headed for Italy?
And according to witness statements, the completely overloaded ship is heading for Italy, about 1000 kilometers away, and not for nearby Greece. Images of brutal pushbacks by Greeks have circulated among many refugees.
The ship will sink four days later, although it has been on the radar of the border agency Frontex and the Greek Coast Guard for hours. In the last few hours, a boat from the Greek Coast Guard has even been with the refugees’ ship.
Since then, the question has been: Could people have been saved? How did it capsize? The research format CTRL_F (NDR/funk) spoke with the British “Guardian”, the Greek journalism NGO Solomon and the research agency Forensis with a total of 26 survivors of the accident.
In addition, the journalists had access to court files and the logbook of the Greek rescue ship that had accompanied the fishing trawler in the last few hours. The accident can be reconstructed more precisely than before.
The way of the fishing boat
Accordingly, the rescue ship 920 of the Greek coast guard reached the fishing boat on June 13 at 10:40 p.m. Greek time. The fugitives have just received water, food and diesel from a passing tanker. The Coast Guard boat approaches to within 200 meters.
According to the log book, a rope is said to have been attached to the fishing cutter for the first time. The reason is unclear. The logbook says: “After tying up at the bow of the fishing boat, voices were heard in Arabic: “NO HELP NO HELP – GO ITALY”. The fugitives untied the rope again.
Until now, little was known about how the refugee boat had moved on the Mediterranean. To avoid detection, it did not transmit ship identification data. However, coordinates of the boat/fishing cutter are noted in the logbook of the boat of the Greek Coast Guard.
Analysts from the research agency Forensis visualized the data. It becomes clear: after the boat had wandered around for a long time because the compass had apparently failed, it suddenly changed course after the coast guard arrived.
It is now heading west at a steady pace, apparently towards Italy. Statements from several survivors suggest that the Greek Coast Guard directed them in that direction, assuring them that an Italian Coast Guard boat was waiting in Italian waters.
Inquiries go unanswered
Did Italian authorities know about this? On request, the Italian coast guard refers to a statement, according to which they in turn saw the Greek authorities as responsible because the ship was in Greek waters.
Frontex also does not comment in detail, but only refers to a statement. A Frontex aircraft had discovered the refugees’ ship the morning before the accident. Frontex then apparently offered air assistance three more times that day. The Greek Coast Guard left all inquiries unanswered.
At 1:40 a.m. on June 14, the fishing boat finally stopped. According to statements by the Coast Guard and survivors, the engine was no longer functional. NDRGuardian and Forensis spoke to a total of 26 witnesses.
Everyone reports that they either saw the rope or noticed a strong pulling movement, meaning that a rope was now attached to the bow of the fishing boat again. Several of the survivors recall that masked men came over from the Coast Guard boat to tie the rope.
There is also a revealing note in the log of the Greek coast guard captain. Shortly after leaving Crete he writes: “Leaving with a team of four from KEA/Chania”. CTRL_F together with the “Guardian” identified the crew involved for the first time.
KEA is a special forces unit trained for risky operations on the high seas. The team could have performed an action such as boarding and tying up another boat.
Was there a second rope?
The Coast Guard admits that a rope was attached at least once: “It was a rope so they could be stabilized to get closer and see if they needed any help,” a government spokesman said.
The Greek authorities have not yet said anything about the allegation that there was a second rope, the use of which later led to the sinking. A second rope is also not mentioned in the logbook. Because it was a risky action? At least that is what the expert for ship safety Stefan Krüger suggests.
towing attempt could trigger doom
According to his assessment, a rope and the associated pull can trigger a so-called heeling moment, i.e. a moment in which a ship critically tilts to the side: “Such a heeling moment, which you can definitely bring with such a rope, leads not to stabilize the ship,” says Krüger, he rather believes “that the motivation was to tow the ship away because the engine was no longer working”.
The coordinates that can be read in the logbook could also suggest that a towing attempt led to the sinking. At 1:40 a.m., after the engine failed, the ship changed course again. A few hundred meters to the east. A movement that cannot be explained by wind or current.
Lots of open questions
20 minutes later, the fishing cutter sinks with more than 700 people on board. Several eyewitnesses told opposite CTRL_F when asked where they wanted to go: “To the Italian coast guard, they said that the Italian coast guard was waiting for us.”
Whether that was actually said, whether it was just a pretense or the correct aim of the crew in attaching a rope – all this remains unclear and is currently the subject of public prosecutor’s investigations in Greece. The Greek coast guard and the responsible ministry left inquiries about this unanswered.