How the world sees Greece
Greece’s Coast Guard seized a cargo vessel loaded with weapons off the island of Crete in the east Mediterranean Sea. According to local media, cargo vessel HADDAD 1 is carrying a Bolivian flag and was sailing from Turkey to Libya. In the early morning hours of Tuesday, units of the […]
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Greek authorities say they are planning to use a ferry currently docked at the island of Kos to transport up to 2,500 migrants to a northern port.
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Several Greek domestic and international flights were cancelled on Wednesday as air traffic controllers went on strike at the height of the tourism season, asking for European-based reforms to be brought in to civil aviation services. At Athens airport ...
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A passenger vessel (Flying Cat) with a total of 253 people on board ran aground off Tinos island in the Aegean Sea on Sunday, the Greek Coast ...
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Eleven people were injured when a passenger ferry hit a harbor wall at the port of Igoumenitsa, in northwestern Greece, while the vessel was in the process of docking on Wednesday morning.
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Victims believed to be in their 20s and from Somalia and Afghanistan were struck by express train north of Veles, police saidFourteen migrants believed to be from Afghanistan and Somalia have been hit by a train and killed while walking along railway tracks in Macedonia, police said on Friday.The migrants, who were part of a group of between 30 and 40 people, were struck by a passenger train north of Veles, in central Macedonia, at around 8.30pm on Thursday. The express service had been travelling from Thessaloniki, in northern Greece, to the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Continue reading...
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Turkey's coastguard rescued 30 Syrians from a boat heading towards Greece after their vessel began to take on water in the Aegean Sea, state media said Tuesday.
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Two drivers were injured when a massive freight train derailed in northern Greece and crumpled into a pile of twisted metal. A 'slight landslide' forced ...
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Greek passenger ferry Melina II issued a distress signal on Tuesday after suffering engine failure off the coast of Syros amid high winds.
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Intense heat from a slow-burning blaze is hampering efforts by firefighters and investigators to search a Greek ferry for any more remains of people ...
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Corigliano (Italy) (AFP) - Italian authorities disembarked some 360 cold and hungry migrants from a "ghost ship" Saturday abandoned by its crew off the country's jagged southern coast. Women and children were among hundreds of migrants left stranded aboard the Ezadeen, which docked in the port of Corigliano Calabro around 11:00 pm (2200 GMT) Friday after a delicate operation by the Italian navy to take control of the ageing vessel.It had been left to drift in stormy seas without fuel or electricity, and in the dark rescuers had first thought that it could be holding up to 450 people.But after docking the authorities revised the count to 232 men, 54 women and 74 children aboard, most of whom are thought to be Syrians fleeing the war in their homeland. All were said to be in good health.Six coastguard officers were lowered from a helicopter onto the deck of the Sierra Leone-flagged vessel on Friday to set up a tow for the 40 kilometres (25 miles) to the Italian coast.The rescue is the latest in a series of maritime operations Italy has mounted in recent days as it struggles with a record wave of migrants making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.On Wednesday, the navy faced more drama after it stopped another crewless "ghost" ship left drifting in its waters with nearly 800 migrants on board.The appearance of the two drifting boats full of migrants within a matter of days has raised concerns that smugglers have started abandoning large boats full of people off the coast of Europe as a new tactic to maximise profits from their ruthless trade.The Ezadeen, which usually carries cattle, had been en route from Famagusta in northern Turkish-controlled Cyprus to the southern French port of Sete, but had first stopped at the Syrian port of Tartus, according to a shipping website. - 'We are alone' - Before it came to a halt, the nearly 50-year-old Ezadeen had been moving at seven knots, and was spotted by a coastguard plane 80 miles offshore shortly after nightfall.After the crew jumped ship, a woman refugee on board was able to operate the ship's radio and told the coastguard that the crew had abandoned the vessel, Italian navy spokesman Captain Filippo Marini said."We are alone, there is no one, help us!" the woman cried, he said.The coastguard asked for assistance from Icelandic patrol boat Tyr, which was in the area on a mission with the European Union's border agency Frontex, but rough weather conditions made boarding impossible.Once the Ezadeen had run out of fuel, five Tyr crew members were winched onto the merchant ship by helicopter to care for passengers until Italian coastguard officers arrived to take control."The migrants aboard were visibly distressed but overall in good medical condition. They have been provided with food, water and basic medical assistance," a Frontex statement said Friday.The incident marked the third sea rescue operation Italy's navy has been forced to mount in a week.The first came with the deadly fire that broke out on the Norman Atlantic ferry Sunday between Greece and Italy.Italian prosecutors fear the ferry could contain the bodies of still undiscovered illegal immigrants and unregistered passengers.Bari prosecutor Giuseppe Volpe said almost 500 people may have been aboard -- far above the 474 officially on the manifest, and prompting fears the current death toll of 13 may rise once the ferry is fully searched in Brindisi.Volpe said it had been "established" that illegal immigrants were aboard, something confirmed by several of the rescued passengers. The search is expected to concentrate on trucks parked in the car deck where the fire started. - New smuggling tactics - On Wednesday, a ship carrying nearly 770 migrants was found drifting towards the rocks off Italy's southeastern shore.The Blue Sky M freighter was on autopilot, after having been abandoned by the people smugglers who had sailed in from Turkey.The Moldovan-registered vessel got within five miles of running aground before six navy officers were lowered on to the ship by helicopter, and succeeded in bringing it under control.The vessel's passengers included some 60 children and two pregnant women, one of whom gave birth on board, according to the Italian Red Cross.Many of the migrants on the ship were treated for hypothermia or injuries including broken limbs.More than 170,000 people have been rescued at sea by Italy in the last 14 months, and hundreds, possibly thousands, have perished trying to make the crossing.Increasingly, the traffickers appear to be abandoning their human cargo at sea, with more now using bigger vessels than the converted fishing boats and other craft they previously favoured.The International Organisation for Migration estimated Friday in Geneva that people smugglers grossed over $1 million (830,000 euros) on just one of the abandoned ships alone.Join the conversation about this story »
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BRINDISI, Italy (AP) — Firefighters boarded the charred Norman Atlantic ferry in the Italian port of Brindisi on Friday to put out residual fires and allow a search for possible dead. A blaze broke out aboard the ferry on Sunday as it was traveling from Greece to Italy, killing at least 11 people. Italy says 477 people were rescued, most by helicopters that plucked survivors off the top deck in gale-force winds and carried them to nearby boats. The probe into the disaster widened Friday. In addition to the ship's captain and the head of the company that built the ferry — both Italians — the prosecutor's office in Bari put two other crew members and two representatives of the Greek ferry line Anek, which rented the Norman Atlantic, under investigation, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. Towing the ferry overnight across the choppy seas of the Adriatic took 17 hours. Several hours after the Norman Atlantic arrived in Brindisi port on Friday, a second tug was tied to the ferry to help stabilize it both front and back. Two firefighters went aboard to check for residual fires burning since smoke was still coming out. One side of the ferry was blackened by smoke. An acrid smell was noticeable dockside. Inside the many trucks and cars on the car desk could be feeding the fire. Once the blaze is fully extinguished and the boat stabilized in port, firefighters will start searching for bodies. A prosecutor must be on board for the start of the official inspection of the wreck to help determine the blaze's cause. Prosecutors fear unregistered migrants were smuggled aboard in trucks and might have died in the flames and smoke. Italian newspapers, reportedly quoting from transcripts of the ferry captain's questioning Wednesday by prosecutors, said Capt. Argilio Giacomazzi told prosecutors that crews didn't properly follow his orders in lowering the lifeboats and that the car deck had too many vehicles. Bari prosecutors have declined to say what the captain told them, citing laws governing investigations. Italian TV reports said passengers noted that five crewmen were in the only lifeboat launched, in apparent violation of rules that specify only three crew members should go aboard with the evacuated passengers. ___ Frances D'Emilio contributed from Rome.
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Charred wreckage of Greek ferry reaches Italy after long tow; firefighters board it
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The ship caught alight on one of the lower garage levels, leaving the vessel to drift without power off the Greek island of Corfu. The passengers ...
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Rome (AFP) - Italy scrambled a helicopter Friday to take control of a crewless merchant ship that lost power as it sailed towards its coast with 450 migrants on board, in the latest maritime incident to hit the waters south of Europe.The chopper has been sent to lower men onto the vessel, which is floating in rough seas some 40 miles (65 kilometres) off Capo di Leuca, the tip of Italy's heel, the air force said."Because of the difficult weather conditions the ship can only be boarded from the air," it said in a statement.The high-seas drama came days after Italy stopped another ship carrying hundreds of migrants drifting towards its shores, as the southern European country struggles with a record wave of migrants making the perilous journey from North Africa.The second ship was identified as the 73-metre-long (240-foot-long) Sierra Leone-registered Ezadeen, which a marine traffic website said was meant to be travelling between Cyprus and the French southern port of Sete.Prior to losing power, the almost 50-year-old ship had been moving at a brisk seven knots and had been spotted by a coastguard plane 80 miles offshore shortly after nightfall.One of the people on board the Ezadeen was able to operate the ship's radio and informed the coastguard that the crew had jumped ship.The coastguard asked for assistance from Icelandic patrol boat Tyr, which was in the area on a mission with Frontex, the European Union's border agency.The Tyr was able to draw alongside the runaway ship, but the weather conditions made boarding impossible.The Icelandic vessel has three doctors on board who will be winched on to the merchant ship by helicopter to treat any unwell passengers, the air force said. - Series of maritime dramas - Earlier this week Italian sailors intercepted a freighter carrying nearly 770 migrants which had been drifting towards the rocks of Italy's southeastern shore on autopilot, abandoned by the people smugglers who had navigated it from Turkey via Greek waters.The Moldovan-registered Blue Sky M cargo ship got to within five miles -- or 45 minutes sailing time -- of a disaster before six navy officers were lowered on to the ship by helicopter and succeeded in bringing it under control.The vessel's human cargo included some 60 children and two pregnant women, one of whom gave birth on board as the boat steamed towards catastrophe, according to the Italian Red Cross.Many of the migrants on the ship were treated for hypothermia and broken limbs.The migrant boat dramas have come as Italy grapples with the aftermath of the Norman Atlantic ferry disaster in which at least 13 people have died following an onboard fire that erupted before dawn on Sunday in waters off Albania.They also come after a record year for people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia attempting to reach Europe by sea.More than 170,000 people have been rescued by Italy in the last 14 months and hundreds, possibly thousands, have perished trying to make the crossing.They are almost invariably under the control of ruthless traffickers who earn thousands of dollars for every person they put to sea from Libya and other departure points in North Africa.Increasingly, the traffickers appear to have decided that the best way to get their human cargoes to Europe is to put to sea and then abandon the boats.Since the onset of winter they have been using bigger boats than the converted fishing boats and dinghies they previously favoured. Join the conversation about this story »
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The Italian captain of the Italian-made ferry, which was operated by a Greek company, was questioned in the southern port of Bari by prosecutors for ...
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Rome (AFP) - Force eight winds on Thursday thwarted a planned attempt to bring the Norman Atlantic back to Italy for checking whether there are any more bodies on board the burnt-out ferry.Bari prosecutor Giuseppe Volpe has ordered the Italian-owned vessel be towed to the southern port of Brindisi as soon as possible so that it can be inspected for corpses and for clues as to what caused the huge fire that erupted on board on Sunday.The fire led to the deaths of at least 13 people, possibly many more.But with the powerful winds and choppy seas forecast to continue to Friday, it was unclear when the tugboats currently stabilising the giant ship would be able to make the 60-mile crossing from waters just off Albania.Volpe has said he expects to find more bodies on board, notably because he suspects there were more stowaways on board than the three -- two Afghans and a Syrian -- who were rescued by the Italian coastguard on Monday.There is also a possibility that passengers who were sleeping in their cabins when the fire erupted may never have made it out of them.Several survivors have said the fire was blazing powerfully before any alarm was sounded and some said it was only the smell of smoke or other passengers banging on their doors that woke them up.- Numbers unclear -Anek Lines, the Greek company which chartered the ferry, has slighly revised the total number of passengers and crew it thinks were on board three times since Sunday, finally settling on a figure of 474.Volpe says the total was 499 with the discrepancy accounted for by the three stowaway survivors and 18 other passengers who were squeezed on to the overbooked vessel at the last minute.That has generated fears that the scale of the disaster could be substantially greater than first thought with the Italian authorities initially saying only 427 people had been taken off the boat alive.That figure was revised upwards to 477 on Thursday following cross checking with all the various military and merchant ships which were involved in ferrying passengers winched off the Norman Atlantic to ports in Greece and Italy over the course of four days.The list has been sent to Greece for cross-checking with the initial passenger list, Italian media reported quoting officials who could not be reached for confirmation.The 13 confirmed dead so far included 11 passengers and two Albanian seamen killed in an accident during the rescue operation.The bodies of nine of the passengers have been recovered while two other victims were identified as dead in the water but floated out of reach of rescuers.The Italian navy scaled back its search for bodies with seven helicopters returning to base late on Wednesday, although a navy ship and one helicopter remain in the area.- Runaway ferry details -Italy's Red Cross meanwhile provided further alarming details of how a freighter ship with more than 700 mostly Syrian migrants was set on an autopilot collision course with the country's rocky coastline and then abandoned by the people smugglers in charge of it.The boat was five miles and less than an hour from the rocks when six Italian sailors were dropped onto it by helicopter and applied the brakes.The Red Cross said there had been 60 children and two pregnant women on the ship, one of whom gave birth on board.Many of the migrants were suffering from hypothermia and injuries including broken limbs but fears of several deaths proved to be unfounded, according to the Red Cross.Join the conversation about this story »
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Greece sent emergency services to the Blue Sky M, carrying 900 migrants, after alarm call near Corfu coastFour migrants were found dead on a cargo ship which was taken to Italy after apparently being abandoned by its crew in Greek waters, the Italian Red Cross said on Wednesday.The Blue Sky M was carrying an estimated 900 migrants when it was spotted drifting near the coast of Corfu on Tuesday. Continue reading...
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Gallipoli (Italy) (AFP) - Italy's coastguard said Wednesday it had narrowly averted another high seas disaster by intercepting a freighter that was on a collision course with the country's rocky shoreline with more than 900 Syrian refugees on board.In what was the second maritime drama of recent days, officers revealed that the huge cargo ship's engine had been locked on with the steering set on a direction that would have led to it crashing ashore somewhere in the Puglia region on the "heel" of Italy.The coastguard, already working flat out because of the Norman Atlantic ferry fire, scrambled two helicopters overnight after realising that the Moldovan-registered Blue Sky M, was headed for disaster.Six coastguard officers boarded the vessel and, after some frantic moments on the bridge, were able to unlock the engines and bring the boat under control just five miles from the coast.- Distress call - "It was a real race against the clock," coastguard spokesman Filippo Marini said. "Unlocking the engines was a difficult and delicate operation, but they managed to do it."In a tweet from its official account, the coastguard said a "massacre" had been avoided.The migrants on board, including a heavily pregnant woman whose waters broke during the drama, were taken to the port of Gallipoli as an inquest began into how the alarming incident had occurred.Greece's coastguard had on Tuesday afternoon received a distress call from someone on board the Blue Sky M who reported that it was being navigated by heavily armed men.A navy frigate, a helicopter and two patrol vessels were dispatched to intercept the boat off the island of Corfu.But after what now appears to have been a very cursory check, the vessel was allowed to continue its journey.A spokesman for Greek port police told AFP at the time that an inspection had revealed "no (mechanical) problems and nothing suspicious on the boat."Italian officials suspect that the vessel was then under the control of people smugglers who later jumped ship, as they frequently do in the knowledge that their human cargo will be picked up by navy or merchant ships. One man suspected of involvement with the traffickers was arrested after the boat arrived in Gallipoli.- Conflict and poverty - The drama came as Italy and Greece were coping with the aftermath of the Norman Atlantic disaster, which has left at least 13 people dead and dozens more unaccounted for.The Italian-owned, Greek-operated ferry was due to be towed Wednesday from waters off Albania back to Italy.The cause of a killer blaze that erupted on the ferry on Sunday remains unknown and investigations aimed at finding out what happened have been opened in Italy and Greece.Survivors who waited up to 24 hours to be rescued from the burning ship have highlighted major shortcomings in the crew's response to the emergency.Doubts over the accuracy of the passenger list have hampered attempts to establish the true scale of the tragedy.The prosecutor in charge of the Italian investigation has said he expects to find more bodies aboard the burnt-out ferry, which was carrying an unknown number of stowaways and more than 400 passengers and crew.Three stowaways who were rescued, two Afghans and a Syrian, have requested political asylum.It is feared some passengers may have died in cabins that were engulfed in smoke early in the incident.An unknown number reported by witnesses to have made it into a lifeboat have not been accounted for.Italy's coastguard has vast experience in rescuing boat people fleeing conflict or poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.More than 170,000 have landed in Italy this year and hundreds, possibly thousands, more have perished at sea while attempting the crossing.With the onset of winter, traffickers have switched to using bigger boats like the Blue Sky M, rather than the converted fishing boats and dinghies they previously deployed.Join the conversation about this story »
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Italy has sent a helicopter to meet a cargo ship alleged to be carrying hundreds of people attempting to illegally migrate into Europe. Greek authorities had previously received a distress call from someone aboard.
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