Authorities on the eastern Aegean Sea island of Chios started efforts Thursday to locate and raise a migrant boat that sank after colliding with a Coast Guard patrol vessel this month, killing 15 people.
Coast Guard vessels and divers were in the area of the accident, some 1.5 nautical miles off the island’s eastern coast, and officials said they would take advantage of good weather conditions to press ahead with the complex operation — starting by finding the boat’s resting place on the seabed.
The prosecutor investigating the February 3 accident ordered that the sunken migrant boat be raised to facilitate the probe, following a request from lawyers representing one of the survivors who has been charged with steering the small vessel and causing the deadly shipwreck.
The Moroccan suspect has denied the charges. His lawyers have contested the coast guard’s account of the shipwreck, according to which the small vessel changed course and deliberately rammed the powerful patrol boat after being detected and repeatedly signaled – with use of lights and foghorn – to stop.
Survivors have denied both that signals were used and that their own boat changed course, suggesting the coast guard vessel ploughed over them without warning.
A total 39 men, women and children, mostly from Afghanistan, were on the boat that had left the nearby Turkish shore and was heading for Chios in the dark, without navigation lights.