It was at 02:00, on the night of June 14, that the boat Adriana capsized and sank in international waters off the southwest coast of Greece. A major rescue effort was launched – but too late.
Of the 750 people who were reportedly on board, only around 100 could be saved.
The alarm: Two children killed
An internal document from the EU’s border agency Frontex, which Politico and Welt am Sonntag have seen, claims that Italian authorities already sent out a warning to both the EU and Greece at eight in the morning: Two children had died on board the boat.
The new information raises questions about whether the authorities knew about the emergency earlier than they have admitted, writes Politico. Frontex has stated that their own aircraft was the first to spot the boat at 9.47am. The Greek government has said it received information about the boat at 8am.
It was only more than twelve hours after Italy’s alarm about the dead children, at 19.40, that the Greek authorities sent a first coast guard vessel to the scene.
Greece: Can neither confirm nor deny
Greece’s newly appointed migration minister, Dimitris Kairidis, tells Politico that he has not seen the Frontex documents, and that he can neither confirm nor deny that Greece was warned about the deaths of children on board the boat.
Earlier, the New York Times revealed that authorities had been following the boat for 13 hours before it sank. The Greek Coast Guard has claimed that people on board “refused any form of assistance”. In fact, the boat drifted aimlessly for at least six and a half hours before it sank, satellite images show.
Most people on board the boat came from Syria, Egypt and Pakistan. Several people testify that many women and children were in the boat’s hold.