. and Niki Kitsantonis reported from Athens, and Cora Engelbrecht from
London. At least 79 people drowned in the Aegean Sea after a large boat carrying migrants sank early Wednesday, the Greek authorities said, in the deadliest such episode off the country’s coast since the height of the 2015 migration crisis. More than 100 people were rescued, but the Greek Coast Guard warned that the death toll would probably increase. The boat foundered on Wednesday about 50 miles southwest of Pylos, a city in southern Greece, in deep waters that could make rescue and recovery efforts difficult. A day earlier, Greek officials were alerted to the boat’s unusual movements, from the Greek Coast Guard, which said that the boat’s crew had declined assistance offered by the authorities. The cause of the sinking was unclear as of Wednesday afternoon. A Greek Shipping Ministry official said that the boat was traveling to
Italy from Tobruk, Libya. While it was en route, the Coast Guard said, two cargo ships had approached the ship, offering food and help, and the crew accepted some food but not the assistance. Then, officers on a Coast Guard vessel dispatched to the area saw “a large number of migrants on the outside deck of the boat” on Tuesday night, the agency said. The boat’s crew declined aid, saying they wanted to continue on to Italy, according to the statement. After the boat sank, the Greek authorities said, the Coast Guard and the
MILITARY deployed a large number of vessels in a “wide-ranging search and rescue operation” to reach survivors and locate the dead. Many of the migrants were believed to be from
Egypt,
Pakistan and
Syria, according to the Shipping Ministry. It was unclear how many people were still missing by late Wednesday. The ship appeared to have sunk in an area that is about 13,000 feet deep, which could put the wreck and victims beyond the reach of divers. President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, who holds a largely ceremonial office, visited the port of Kalamata, in southwestern Greece, where some people were protesting the government’s tough stance on migration. The authorities have established an open-air clinic there to provide first aid to survivors. The sinking was the deadliest such episode off the Greek coast since when a boat carrying migrants sank near the island off Lesbos in October 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration. Greece’s caretaker prime minister, Ioannis Sarmas, declared three days of national mourning on Wednesday. Last year, nearly 3,800 migrants died on routes within and from the
Middle East and North Africa region, according to a new annual report by the organization — the highest death toll in five years, . And given the scarcity of official data, the actual number of deaths on those routes is probably much higher, it said. “As many as 84 percent of those who perished along sea routes remain unidentified, leaving desperate families in search of answers,” the report said. Some of the worst disasters at sea took place in 2015 and 2016, as hundreds of thousands of people tried to reach Europe. In one sinking, in April 2015, near Libya; a year later, the
United Nations when a boat packed with migrants capsized en route to Italy. Migration has been a central issue in the Greek
election, and two leading politicians, the conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the left-wing Alexis Tsipras, canceled speeches on Wednesday evening. Mr. Mitsotakis, a former prime minister, has , arguing that a more lenient stance had caused undue pressure on the country and a rise in deaths at sea. While in office, Mr. Mitsotakis imposed a crackdown on migration, heightening border controls in an effort that led to a 90 percent drop in migrant arrivals since 2015. Rights groups accused his government of and building camps with prisonlike conditions, and showed the Greek Coast Guard in April rounding up asylum seekers, among them children, and abandoning them on a raft at sea. In a statement, Mr. Mitsotakis said he was “stunned” by Wednesday’s sinking, which he said underlined a need for Europe to respond to criminal smuggling networks. “This is a time for solidarity and humanity. The priority is to save as many lives as possible,” he said. “The new incident, however, highlights in a dramatic way that the issue of migration remains a problem that demands a coherent European policy.” Many people in Greece, particularly in border areas, have welcomed the reduced number of migrant arrivals, and Mr. Mitsotakis’s party , though it fell short of a majority to lead the government.