A rescue operation continued on Monday to locate refugees and migrants who were on a vessel that sank on Saturday morning, thirteen nautical miles southwest of the Greek island of Paxi in the Ionian Sea.
According to Athens-Macedonian News Agency sources, the 21 people who have been rescued from the shipwreck – ten Afghans, two Syrians, four Pakistanis, two Iranians, two Iraqis and one Somalii – were sent to Preveza and are in good health.
The bodies of another twelve individuals who died when the ship went down have not yet been identified, while there are no children among the recovered dead or those who have been rescued.
According to the testimonies of survivors, there had been approximately 50 people on the boat.
Two Greek Coast Guard vessels assisted by one helicopter were participating in the search and rescue operation on Monday but the sunken vessel, which sank while a number of people were still inside, had not been located.
A preliminary investigation was underway, but authorities were only able to verify that the vessel had been bound for Italy, while neither its point of departure nor the manner in which the migrants and refugees had been taken there had been officially ascertained.
Source: AMNA