What we know about migrant tragedy off Greece

The coastguard said that the merchant marine operations room was in repeated contact with the fishing boat. "They steadily repeated that they wished to sail to Italy and did not want any contribution from Greece."

At 2240 GMT, the trawler notified Athens of engine failure and the trawler stopped moving. The nearby patrol boat "immediately tried to approach the trawler to determine the problem," the coastguard said.

Twenty-four minutes later, the Greek patrol boat skipper radioed in that the boat had capsized. It sank within 15 minutes at 2:19 am Greek time.
 

There are mounting questions as to whether the Greek coastguard should have intervened earlier to escort the aged trawler, clearly packed with people, to safety.

"The fishing boat was 25 to 30 metres long. Its deck was full of people, and we assume the interior was just as full," coastguard spokesman Nikolaos Alexiou told state TV ERT on Wednesday.

Government spokesman Ilias Siakantaris said there were unconfirmed reports that up to 750 people had been on the boat.
 

The coastguard spokesman suggested the boat might have capsized earlier if they had attempted to intervene. "You cannot divert a boat with so many people on board by force unless there is cooperation," he said.
 

Greece's leftist former prime minister Alexis Tsipras said the migrants had actually "called for help" after talking to survivors at the western port of Kalamata. One video showed a survivor on Thursday telling Tsipras that the boat had capsized after the coastguard attempted to drag it at excessive speed. "So the Greek coastguard used a rope to drag you, and that is how you sank?" the leftist leader asked.
 

Government spokesman Siakantaris confirmed Friday that a rope was thrown to "stabilise" the boat, but the migrants had refused help, saying, "No help, go Italy."

"There was never an attempt to tie the vessel, neither by us nor any other ship," the coastguard spokesman said Friday.
 

AlarmPhone, which runs a hotline for migrants in distress at sea, said those on board had reported at 1520 GMT on Tuesday that the captain had fled on a small boat. Fourteen minutes later, the migrants said that "the boat is overcrowded and... moving from side to side." This is around the time the Greek coastguard said an English speaker on board insisted the vessel was "in no danger" and did not require assistance.
 

The NGO also noted that migrants are reluctant to be intercepted by Greek forces owing to widespread reports of mistreatment and pushbacks, which Athens consistently denies.

Asylum seekers "know that encountering the Hellenic Coast Guard, the Hellenic Police or the Hellenic Border Guards often means violence and suffering. It is due to systematic pushbacks that boats are trying to avoid Greece, navigating much longer routes, and risking lives at sea," it said.
 

Vincent Cochetel, special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for the central and western Mediterranean, said Friday that Greece's argument for not intervening "does not hold up".

"Under international law, Greek authorities should have organised this rescue operation sooner, as soon as Frontex spotted the boat in distress," he told AFP.

"The boat was full to bursting... and the photos taken by Frontex leave no doubt that it was adrift and that people were objectively in a distress situation," Cochetel said.