The Comoros-flagged ship “Raptor” had departed from El Dekheila port in Egypt and was sailing to Istanbul when it reported a mechanical failure and issued a distress call early on Sunday, the Greek coast guard said.

Eight of the crew were Egyptians and the rest were Syrian and Indian nationals.

The coast guard had rescued one person, who was airlifted by helicopter in gale force winds.

Athens (AP) — Nine Egyptian men accused of belonging to a human smuggling ring that authorities say bears responsibility for one of the worst migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea appeared in court in southern Greece on Tuesday for questioning over their alleged role in the disaster.

The nine face charges that include participation in a criminal organization, manslaughter and causing a shipwreck. The hearing was taking place in the southern city of Kalamata.

More than 500 people are believed to be missing from last week’s sinking of the dilapidated fishing trawler, which according to some estimates was carrying up to 750 people from Libya to Italy.

So far, 81 bodies have been recovered and 104 people, all men, have been rescued. A search and rescue operation continues in the area, but chances of locating more survivors were exceedingly slim.

Asked about the incident as World Refugee Day was marked across the globe Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “It is horrible, what happened, and the more urgent is that we act.”

Von der Leyen, the head of the European Union’s executive arm, said the EU should help African countries like Tunisia, where many migrants leave for Europe, to stabilize their economies, as well as finalize a long-awaited reform of the 27-nation bloc’s asylum rules.

She did not, however, mention Libya, from where the doomed trawler and many similarly overloaded Europe-bound boats depart across the particularly dangerous Mediterranean migration route.

Nine Syrian and Pakistani survivors reportedly identified the suspects over the weekend as having been involved in sailing the ship.

Five other suspects were arrested in Pakistan, where police launched a crackdown this week on human smuggling after 12 Pakistani nationals were identified among the survivors, officials in Islamabad said Tuesday. Some of the suspects confessed to sending some of the Pakistanis who were on the sunken boat, they said.

Relatives of at least 124 people in Pakistan have contacted authorities to find out about missing loved ones believed to be on the trawler, the officials said. It is unclear how many Pakistanis were on the vessel.

Some survivors have said the trawler had been under tow by another vessel just before it sank. Greek officials have insisted the coast guard did not tow the migrant ship at any point, and only briefly had a line attached to it hours before it capsized and sank in international waters in the early hours of June 14.

The coast guard has also been widely criticized for not trying to rescue the migrants before their vessel sank. It argued that they refused any assistance and insisted on proceeding to Italy, adding that it would have been too dangerous to try and evacuate hundreds of unwilling people off an overcrowded ship.

The full details remain unclear. Photos and videos taken hours before the sinking show people crammed on all available open spaces of the trawler. Survivors have said the ship’s interior was also packed with people, including many women and children.

One survivor, Ali Sheikhi from the northeast Syrian town of Kobani, told Kurdish TV new channel Rudaw that he and other relatives from Kobani agreed to pay smugglers $4,000 each for the trip, a sum later increased to $4,500. His younger brother died in the shipwreck, he said.

Speaking late Sunday by phone from a closed reception center near Athens where survivors were taken, Sheikhi told the broadcaster the smugglers didn’t allow anyone to bring life jackets and threw whatever food the passengers had into the sea.

He and his traveling companions were directed to the ship’s hold, Sheikhi said, but he managed to get out onto the deck after paying extra money to the smugglers.

By the time the ship sank, they had been at sea for five days. Water ran out after a day and a half, and he said some passengers resorted to drinking seawater.

Crucially, Sheikhi said the trawler went down after its engine broke down and another vessel tried to tow it.

“In the pulling, (the trawler) sank,” he said. “We don’t know who it belonged to.” Similar claims have been made by other survivors in accounts posted on social media, and other survivors were anonymously quoted in Syrian media Monday saying the ship was being towed.

Most survivors have been transported to a migration center north of Athens, including 10 people who were released from hospital and transported to the center on Monday, Greece’s Migration Ministry said. A hotline has also been set up for relatives seeking information on missing loved ones.

Islamabad (AP) — Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday declared a national day of mourning for citizens who died when a fishing trawler packed with migrants sank off the Greek coast.

As many as 750 men, women and children from Syria, Egypt, the Palestinian territories and Pakistan were on board the vessel, trying to reach relatives in Europe. The Greek coast guard has defended its response to the tragedy that left more than 500 migrants presumed drowned. The vessel sank on Wednesday.

Sharif expressed his grief over the tragedy and said Monday would be observed as a day of mourning, with the national flag flying at half-staff.

He previously said that Pakistan’s embassy in Athens has identified 12 nationals who were rescued by the coast guard. There was no official information on how many Pakistanis were onboard the vessel, how many survived or how many perished.

Greek authorities have been criticized for their failure to act faster. They say the migrants insisted they didn’t need any help, but non-governmental organizations say they received a number of calls for help. The sinking was one of the worst disasters of its kind this year.

Meanwhile, police in Pakistan-administered Kashmir said Sunday they arrested 12 people involved in sending local youths to Libya for the onward journey to Europe.

Senior officer Khalid Chauhan said police picked up the suspects amid a crackdown on human traffickers. Police are interrogating them for their alleged roles in luring, trapping and sending locals abroad after extracting huge amounts of money from them.

Around 28 people from the Koi Ratta area in the district of Kotli have gone to Libya for onward travel to Europe, police said. Local official Chaudhry Haq Nawaz said there was still no confirmation on how many young men from the area were onboard the ill-fated boat, or how many are among the dead or missing.

He said efforts are underway to collect relatives’ DNA and the test results will be sent to Greece to help identify victims.

People have been offering their support to relatives of those presumed to have been on the boat.

Raja Sakundar, of Bindian village in Kotli, said his four nephews aged 18 to 36 remain missing.

“We were informed by the media (of the tragedy). When children are not found or die, you can understand what a parent goes through,” he said.

Raja Muhammad Majeed asked the Pakistani government to bring back his nephew, Raja Awais.

“If he is dead, bring back (the) body,” he said. “When we bury him here, his mother, sisters and others can go to his grave and offer prayers. We will be patient.”

The minister said that, “What we are facing is a challenge of a neo-Ottoman state which tries to impose its will upon its neighbors, with violence if needed”.

“We see Turkey transfer mercenaries to Syria, to Libya, to the Southern Caucasus, terrorist mercenaries, a huge danger for the public order of all countries of the region,” he added.

Dendias believes that Turkey is attempting to overwrite the rules in the overall region of the Mediterranean.

“Turkey is trying to undermine President el-Sisi’s government in Egypt; Turkey is present wherever there is trouble. Turkey has invaded Syria and Iraq”, the Minister said. “Sometimes the EU has allowed Turkey to arrive at the wrong conclusions, and that is not good for Turkey, not good for the union, not good for the Turkish society, and it is not good for the peace and stability in the Mediterranean and generally in the region”.

“For many, a country [Germany] dedicated to peace should not sell weapons to a country [Turkey] threatening peace and stability and threatening EU members”, he added.

In the conclusion he said, “We cannot even perceive that Germany would allow a country to threaten Greece; Germany would not allow a country that threatens EU members with war to possess attack weapons that can change the overall balance in the region”.

The priest was fired on twice at around 4 p.m. (1400 GMT) as he was closing the church, and he was being treated on site for life-threatening injuries, the source said.

Witnesses said the church was Greek Orthodox. Police immediately cordoned off the area.

The incident came two days after a man shouting “Allahu Akbar!” (God is Greatest) beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in Nice. Two weeks ago a schoolteacher in a Paris suburb was beheaded by an 18-year-old attacker who was apparently incensed by the teacher showing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad during a class.

Government ministers had warned that other militant attacks could take place. President Emmanuel Macron has deployed thousands of soldiers to protect sites such as places of worship and schools.

The Nice attack took place on the day Muslims celebrate the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday. Many Muslims around the world have been angered about France’s defence of the right to publish cartoons depicting the Prophet.

These are pure political gimmicks to keep the show running and satiating the thirst for power…

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Friday, a court’s decision to annul the Hagia Sophia’s museum status, which will pave way to restore it as a mosque.

Hagia Sophia was originally a Greek church (Santa Sophia), which was made as a mosque in 1453 by Ottoman rulers. However, in 1934 after Turkey got international recognition it was made as a museum.

Now, Turkish court has paved a way to restore it as a mosque, but this decision has provoked Christian majority countries like Greece, and it may pose danger to Muslims living as minorities in Christian-dominant countries like that of Spain.

Muslims in Spain’s Córdoba have been struggling for years to get permission to pray in their former mosques. Sometimes they send requests to Vatican to help them get permission. Moreover, the far-right Christian groups in Spain object the proposals, citing the condition of Christian communities living in Muslim countries.

Don’t you think Turkey’s latest move will provoke Christians against Muslim minorities?

Interestingly, if you ask these people who support this move, if it’s permissible in Islam to convert any worship place into mosque? The obvious response will be “NO”. And they will come up with a lot of narrations from Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) and his companions about the prohibition of the act.

In fact, the famous incident of second caliph of Islam Umar al-Khattab is cited. When he conquered Jerusalem. He jumped out of a church when informed about the place, and prayed outside. When asked why he did that, he replied that he was afraid that future generations would make that as a practice to convert non-Muslim places of worship into mosques.

More interestingly, all of these rejoicers will cite how peaceful Islam is, and how it doesn’t allow converting other places of worship into mosques. And the logical reasons will be given that this will provoke the other communities to attack Muslims living in minorities.

Unfortunately, they fall for the Erdogan’s political gimmick. The way India’s ruling party used the Ayodhya’s disputed land case that is Ram Temple vs. Babri Mosque to appease the majority and grab the Hindu-vote bank, in order to hide the raising questions on demonetization, mob-lynching, and the run-away business typhoons. Majority of the people were on cloud nine with the court’s decision to restore Ram temple at the disputed place.

You would observe that Erdogan and his party following the same pattern to sell the Hagia Sophia case in 2023 elections to gain sympathy and appeasement of the Muslims, while brushing off the failures of falling Lira, deteriorating health care and education system, and Erdogan’s foreign policies.

Superficially, the conversion of Hagia Sophia to mosque will appeal and attract a lot of Muslims worldwide, who may see Erdogan as a future Muslim leader, but they fail to see and realize the ulterior motives Erdogan pose as a danger to the Muslim countries especially the Arab nations, which are trying to regain from the aftermath of the so-called “Arab Spring”.

These are pure political tactics to exude shallow machoism with the thirst for power, while jeopardizing the status of Muslims living as minorities outside Turkey.

Zahack Tanvir is a Computer Engineer based in Saudi Arabia. He holds Diploma in Journalism from London School of Journalism. He regularly writes for MilliChronicle on socio-political issues. He tweets under @ZahackTanvir.

Anyone who experiences it, be they refugee or visitor, agrees that it feels like a hell on earth.

At Camp Moria, a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos close to the shores of Turkey, everything is in turmoil. In the midst of it all, there are children with nothing much to do, and some of them scramble among the trash, crowds of people everywhere they try to go. Illness has spread everywhere and the garbage is piled up high. By official count, more than 20,000 refugees live in Camp Moria in converted temporary Conex units and in tents. The rest, the unofficial numbers — we do not know how many — live in tents in the forests and on the streets. A large number of people also live in the island’s ruined buildings.

Amidst this mayhem, lone women and women with children have their own stories to tell.

The women’s section is on the right after you enter Camp Moria. Thousands of women refugees, alone or with their daughters, live in this place, which was designed for just 200 people. The extreme overcrowding has forced many of them to live in the men’s section or under tents in the woods around the camp. They too take shelter in nearby ruins, and most of them prefer it to Camp Moria. According to human rights organizations, a human catastrophe has unfolded in the camp. Anyone who experiences it, be they refugee or visitor, agrees that it feels like a hell on earth.

I stepped into the women’s section amidst a commotion that never seems to subside. A solitary woman refugee told me her story of sexual harassment. She has lived in the camp for a year without any prospects and is awakened every night by nightmares. One night, as she was returning from the city to the camp by herself, several men attacked and tried to rape her. She screamed loudly and a group of people luckily came to her rescue. Now she refers to the incident as “that horror” and never leaves the camp by herself.

We started walking around the camp with a few other women so they could tell me about the camp’s polluted environment and the lives of other refugees. But every step of the way we were chastised, a group of men shouting sexual insults at us. It was impossible to ignore.

Refugees from Domestic Violence

Most of the Iranian woman refugees who live in Camp Moria’s women’s section, and many like them who live in Athens or Turkey or other countries that take in refugees, have escaped domestic violence — a type of violence that is not considered a crime in Iran. There are no laws there to adequately address it. 

On this visit, I talked to a woman who told me she was forced to escape Iran because of domestic violence. Another said that her family tried to force her to marry a man she didn’t want to so she packed her bags and reached this island without letting her family know. “I wanted to commit suicide in Iran and here I also attempted suicide once,” she said as we were walking. “So they have given me tranquilizers.” She reached into her bag and showed me a plastic vial with some pills. She did not know the name of the pill, but it had stripped her body of all its hair. Still, I could see the shadow of a smile on her face and she spoke calmly.

A woman who had arrived at Lesbos with her son and her daughter and who lived in one of the tents outside the camp told me that she had been stuck on the island for more than 13 months. “My husband continuously beat us,” she said. “He would even beat my children. He was a drug addict and he wanted us to get him drugs. I took the children and came to Greece because of their future, but this is where we have ended up.” Did she have guardianship of her children? I asked her. “It would have taken years to get a divorce,” she said. “He refused to give me a divorce so I escaped.”

In another tent an Afghan woman told me about her illness, and her child’s. “My daughter throws up blood but the doctor says that she is all right,” she said. “My kidneys ache and the doctor says I might have kidney stones. But they do not give us any medication. They just tell us to drink water.”

Another woman living in a tent had recently given birth. “For a whole month neither me nor my baby have had a bath,” she told me.

There is no hot water. If people are lucky, the water is lukewarm. But often it is cut off, and it is the same with the electricity. The washstands and lavatories are dirty and there is a single food line for more than 20,000 refugees. Fights and violent clashes are common and weapons such as knives and machetes can be bought and sold easily. Illicit drugs are readily available. All the violence and crime happens right before the eyes of children, as well as adults, many of them vulnerable. Fires, fights, hunger, poverty, long waits and an uncertain future have pushed up the rate of suicide attempts.

No Medicine, No Money and Not Enough Doctors

Many people in the camps suffer from an illness everyone refers to as “scratchy.” Putrid boils appear on the skin and when the affected person scratches the boils, they spread all over the body, including to the genitals. But there is no medicine, no money and not enough doctors. Human rights organizations do their best under these primitive conditions, distributing tampons, diapers, clothing, and sometimes medicine. Most of the women I spoke to said, “The only thing we want is to be delivered from this hell.” And there can be little doubt that everyone in or near the camp feels this way. 

There are also many women in the camp who live with their own families, but this does not necessarily make their lives much better. One woman told me that her husband took out the frustrations of living in Camp Moria by beating her. Another woman was asking for help to get a certificate saying her husband had a “nervous ailment” so that they might be allowed to leave the island. And a woman who had arrived on Lesbos with her only daughter pleaded with me: “Can you teach me everything you know? I promise to learn it well and work for you.”

Most of the time, when the women trapped on this island tell me their stories, they do so through tears. They start to talk, but soon their chin begins to tremble and their eyes fill with tears. They all hope to come across an “angel of rescue.”  Like other refugees trapped in Greece, they complain about the politicians. They don’t understand why they have to suffer these conditions for months and even years.

In 2016, the European Union, Greece and Turkey signed an agreement that specified that refugees that arrive on the countries’ islands must remain there until their asylum applications are processed. If their application is rejected, they must be returned to Turkey and, in exchange, the European Union will give asylum to the same number of refugees accepted by Turkey. However, Turkey has objected to the plan in practice and this agreement has not been carried out.

On the other hand, according to the police and to refugee rights activists, the number of refugees on both of these islands and in Athens, all of whom are trying to get to Western Europe, is increasing day by day. Some lose their lives along the way, some simply lose their way and some are arrested and have to spend several months in prison and detention centers where, sometimes, life is even worse than in the camps.

Now the new Greek government has promised to cut short the time that it takes to process applications for asylum, close Camp Moria and turn it into a detention center. Human rights activists, however, are afraid that this might hurt the chances of refugees because their asylum applications might not be processed with adequate care and, as a result, they will then be imprisoned in closed camps.

Meanwhile, it’s Getting Worse

In the meantime, the situation at Camp Moria is now worse than it was some months ago. Every day there are more refugees, but the facilities have remained the same. Greece itself has to deal with an economic crisis — there are many homeless Greek citizens on the streets — but, in line with agreements with the European Union, Greece must now shield Europe from what some term the “invasion” of refugees. It’s a task that Greek journalists, activists and lawyers do not believe Greece is able to carry out on its own.

In this theater of horrors, news reports and rumors are on the whole more frightening for women than for men. Not only are they are in constant fear of sexual assault, they are afraid that if the Greek government hears of their protests through the media, they can easily be deported to Turkey, or they will be sent back to the countries where they came from. Consequently, many of them avoid reporters and the media and believe that nobody can or will help them. It feels to them as if the walls of the refugee world are pushing on them from every side, especially on the Greek islands.

Despite these fears and pressures, on January 30, hundreds of female refugees from Camp Moria went into the city to protest against the conditions under which they live. They protested against the absence of medicine and hygiene and the increasing violence in the camp that has robbed them of their peace. They say that it is this peace that they risked their lives for, crossing the sea, often on small sailboats or dinghies. Now they are trapped among tents, shipping containers, trash, pollution and neglect. On the day of the protest, and every day, what are they asking for? Escape from Moria.

Article first published on Iran Wire.