Hundreds missing after migrant boat sinks off Greece

Search and rescue teams continued to scour the ocean off southern Greece for survivors on Thursday after an overcrowded migrant boat capsized.

As of press time, at least 79 people were known to have drowned, more than 100 had been rescued, and many more — possibly hundreds — were missing.

Greece called for three days of national mourning and said the sinking was one of the biggest tragedies of the migrant crisis, in which people fleeing war and hardship have attempted to enter Europe to claim refugee status.

The crisis has prompted much debate in Europe, with some calling for relaxed rules to make it easier for destitute people to seek refuge, and others cautioning against it.

Jerome Tubiana, from Medecins Sans Frontieres, told Radio France Internationale the authorities should have acted faster to help those on the vessel, which was on its way from Libya to Italy when it sank at around 2 am on Wednesday.

"It's really shocking to hear that Frontex flew over the boat and no one intervened because the boat refused all offers of help," he said of the European Union's border and coast guard agency. "An overloaded boat is a boat in distress."

In the aftermath of the tragedy 80 kilometers southwest of Pylos, in the Peloponnese region of Greece, Frontex confirmed it had been monitoring the vessel since Tuesday afternoon, and that it had offered help. It said it had also made the authorities in Greece and Italy aware. Frontex said no one on board appeared to have been wearing a life preserver.

The BBC reported a Maltese-flagged ship took food and water to the vessel on Wednesday evening, and another took water to it three hours later. The broadcaster said someone on the boat contacted the Greek authorities at around 1:40 am on Wednesday to say its engine had stopped working.

The boat is then thought to have capsized, before sinking 10 to 15 minutes later.

Greek coast guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou told state broadcaster ERT TV the capsizing looked to have been caused by a "shift among the people crammed on board".

One survivor told the authorities that around 100 children were below the deck at the time.

The tragedy was the latest in a long list of mass deaths involving migrants, with a sinking off southern Italy in February claiming at least 94 lives, and the worst to date claiming 1,100 lives off the coast of Libya in April 2015.