Shipping rescues migrants, Greece calls for European strategy

Within hours of the incident rescue workers had recovered the bodies of 12 women, four children and six men. Another 36 were rescued and according to them there were around 65 people crammed into the two boats.

The first body was sighted before dawn by RCCL's cruise ship Azamara Journey, which spent sometime criss-crossing the search area before continuing on to Turkey’s popular tourist port of Kusadasi.

It could have been much worse as hundreds have died attempting the short but perilous crossing from Turkey to the Greek island this year alone, the Greek coast guard said. Often bodies are found swept up on the coast, without any report of a boat being in trouble.

In a major rescue, the Onassis Group's suezmax Olympic Faith, played a key role in the safe rescue of some 345 people, most of them undocumented migrants from Syria and Egypt, 31 March, in a sea operation 65 nm northwest of Crete island. The rescue operation was launched after the immigrants' boat sent a distress signal late the previous day. Two merchant ships and a US military vessel took part in the operation, while a coast guard vessel and a Greek frigate were also dispatched to the area from Piraeus.

The migrants were transferred to Chania aboard the 149,850 dwt Olympic Faith and remained onboard in Crete, until accommodation was found.

Coast Guard officials rescued 41 would-be migrants off the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos, 1 April. The migrants were crammed into a vessel which became half-full of water according to coast guard sources who said, they jumped into the water when help was seen to be at hand.

As was the case in the 5 May incident, the nationalities of the boat people are wide ranging. Of the survivors in the latest tragedy, 23 are Somalian, four from Eritrea and nine from Syria, officials said.

A vessel of Frontex, the organisation which promotes, coordinates and develops European border management was the first to spot an overturned vessel and several migrants in the sea. Two Greek Navy rescue helicopters and two coast guard vessels were dispatched for a rescue operation, which also included, as usual, several fishing boats.

Greece has made tackling illegal immigration a priority during its six-month tenure of the rotating EU presidency. Greece, Italy and Malta, the EU's gate-keepers, have repeatedly pressed EU partners to do more to help them handle migrants flooding in into Europe packed into unsafe boats. Numbers have increased since "Arab Spring" uprisings triggered unrest across North Africa and civil war in Syria.

Greece’s Shipping and Aegean minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis 5 May renewed the appeal for additional European support. “Tragic occurrences like today’s make the need to forge a common European strategy to tackle the phenomenon of illegal immigration and to protect human life and dignity more pressing than ever,” he said.

Pressure has been on Greece and Varvitsiotis after the coast guard was accused of botching a rescue operation, 20 January, which led to 16 undocumented migrants being rescued and the death of eight children and three women off the coast of Farmakonisi in the southeastern Aegean.

European Commissioner for human rights, Nils Muiznieks, has urged Varvitsiotis to “shed full light on the circumstances of this tragic event".

Aftermath of the 20 January tragedy jolted the Greek government's shipping administration and dented the high regard in which the coast guard is universally held, after it was alleged the guard tried to push the 28 migrants crowded into the boat back to Turkey. Both the minister and the leadership of the coast guard strongly refuted these allegations though the coast guard admiral made a public apology and has since been replaced.

With Greece’s resources stretched to the limit, Frontex said the number of migrants entering Europe's borders illegally rose 48% in 2013 compared to the previous year, mainly from Syria.

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