ATHENS: The Greek government has firmly backed its coastguard, insisting it is "not a welcoming committee" as questions grow over a collision in the Aegean Sea this week that killed 15 asylum seekers.
The deadly crash occurred late Tuesday when the high-speed boat the migrants were travelling in collided with a coastguard patrol vessel off the Greek island of Chios, not far from the Turkish coast.
Four women were among the dead, while 24 survivors have been admitted to hospital in Chios.
Rights groups and international media have repeatedly accused Greece of illegally forcing would-be asylum seekers back into Turkish waters, backing their claims with video and witness testimonies.
Greek media and opposition parties have questioned the details of Tuesday's crash and the country's ombudsman has called for "an impartial and thorough investigation", stressing that the priority should always be "the protection of human life".
On Thursday, the government said it fully backed the maritime agency.
"We have full confidence in the coastguard and we support them", government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told reporters.
Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he was expecting "a full investigation" into the crash.
In the meantime, he argued that preliminary details showed that "essentially, our coastguard ship was rammed by a much smaller boat".
"This is a situation that happens quite frequently in the Aegean", he told Foreign Policy, arguing that smugglers were endangering migrants' lives.
Had Greek authorities not been present, more people would probably have died, he alleged.
The coastguard was "not a welcoming committee" for people seeking asylum in the European Union, he told the magazine.
Following the crash the coastguard said the pilot of the migrant boat had ignored signals and "made a U-turn manoeuvre" before colliding with the Greek patrol boat.
"Under the force of the impact, the speedboat capsized and then sank, throwing everyone on board into the sea", the agency said.
So far, none of the hospitalised survivors have testified directly.
One of them, a 31-year-old Moroccan man, was to be questioned by police as a possible smuggler.
Several Greek media outlets, including To Vima and private TV channel Mega, have reported the victims died of severe head injuries.
Some news organisations have questioned why the patrol boat's thermal camera was not switched on.
"The captain of the patrol boat judged it unnecessary because the migrants' speedboat had already been detected by a camera on shore and a spotlight", government spokesman Marinakis said.
The port police released photos of the coastguard patrol vessel showing minor damage, but no images of the asylum seekers' boat.
Abusive pushbacks have become the "norm" in Greece, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said in 2023.
The crash off Chios was "not an isolated incident", the Refugee Support Aegean charity said this week.
"Based on the available information and the initial announcement of the Hellenic Coast Guard, it appears that, instead of a search and rescue operation, an interception operation was deployed from the outset", RSA said in a statement.
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
