At 22:40 GMT, the fishing boat reports an engine failure. The patrol boat that was nearby “immediately tried to approach the fishing boat to see what the problem was,” the coast guard said.
But barely 24 minutes later, the chief of the patrolman announced on the radio that the ship had capsized. She sank in 15 minutes.
According to the Greek coast guard, “there was no request for help” from the people on board the fishing boat.
“After numerous calls from the Greek coast guard operations center to rescue them, the fishing boat’s response was negative,” the statement said.
“From [las 12:30 GMT hasta las 18:00 GMT], the operating room (…) was in contact with the fishing vessel several times. They constantly repeated that they wanted to sail to Italy,” the document states.
Greek government spokesman Ilias Siakantaris explained on television on Friday that “the coastguards approached the ship, threw a rope to stabilize it, but the migrants refused help.”
“They said ‘No help, Go Italy’ [“Ayuda no, vamos a Italia”, en inglés]”, he added.
The spokesman for the Greek port police, Nikolaos Alexiou, stressed for his part that a ship with so many people on board could not be towed away by force, they have to cooperate.
“There was no attempt to tow the boat,” he said.