Foreign News
Greek coastguards charged over 2023 migrant shipwreck
A naval court in Greece has charged 17 coastguards over the deadliest migrant boat disaster in the Mediterranean Sea for a decade.
Up to 650 people were feared to have drowned when the overcrowded Adriana fishing vessel sank near Pylos, off the Greek coast, in the early hours of 14 June 2023.
Survivors later told the BBC that Greek coastguards had caused their boat to capsize in a botched attempt to tow it and then silenced witnesses.
“It has taken us two years just for these charges to come, even though so many people witnessed what happened,” one of the survivors, a Syrian man we called Ahmad, said on Monday.
The Greek authorities have always denied the claims against them.
The Deputy Prosecutor of the Piraeus Naval Court has found that 17 members of the Hellenic Coast Guard should face criminal charges.
Among them is the captain of the coastguard ship, the LS-920, who is charged with “causing a shipwreck”, leading to the deaths of “at least 82 people”.
This corresponds to the number of bodies recovered, although it is thought as many as an additional 500 people drowned, including women and children who were all below deck.
The disaster occurred in international waters – but within Greece’s rescue zone.
The then-Chief of the Coast Guard and the Supervisor of the National Search and Rescue Coordination Centre in Piraeus are among four officials charged with “exposing others to danger”.
The captain of the LS-920 is also charged with “dangerous interference of maritime transport” as well as a “failure to provide assistance” to the migrant boat.
The crew of the ship are charged for “simple complicity” in all the acts allegedly committed by the captain.
A coastguard ship had been monitoring the Adriana for 15 hours before it sank.
It had left Libya for Italy with an estimated 750 people on board. Only 104 of them are known to have survived.
We’ve been investigating since the day of the disaster and our series of findings has cast serious doubt on the official Greek version of events.
Within a week, we obtained shipping data which challenged the claim the migrant boat had not been in trouble and so did not need to be rescued.
A month later, survivors told us the coastguard had caused their boat to sink in a disastrous effort to tow it and then forced witnessed to stay silent.
Last year, a case against nine Egyptians was thrown out, amid claims they had been scapegoated by the Greek authorities.
Earlier this year, audio recordings emerged which further challenged the official Greek version of events.
We first met Syrian refugees, who we called Ahmad and Musaab to protect their identities, a month after the disaster.
They said they each paid $4,500 (£3,480) for a spot on the boat.
Ahmad’s younger brother was also on board and did not survive.
Musaab described to us the moment when – he alleged – the Greek coastguards caused their boat to sink.
“They attached a rope from the left,” he said. “Everyone moved to the right side of our boat to balance it. The Greek vessel moved off quickly causing our boat to flip. They kept dragging it for quite a distance.”
The men claimed that once on land, in the port of Kalamata, the coastguard told survivors to “shut up” when they started to talk about how the Greek authorities had caused the disaster.
“When people replied by saying the Greek coastguard was the cause, the official in charge of the questioning asked the interpreter to tell the interviewee to stop talking,” Ahmad said.
He said officials shouted: “You have survived death. Stop talking about the incident Don’t ask more questions about it.”
Today Ahmad – who is now living in Germany – said he felt vindicated by the charges that had been brought.
“I’m very happy they are eventually being held accountable for all that they have committed, but until I see them in prison nothing has been done yet,” he said.
“To be honest, the Greek legal system is very unreliable.”
The joint legal team representing survivors and victims of the disaster said the decision to pursue a case against the 17 coastguards was a big step forward towards justice being done.
In a statement it said: “Almost two years after the Pylos shipwreck, the prosecution and referral to main investigation for felonies of 17 members of the Coast Guard, including senior officers of its leadership, constitutes a substantial and self-evident development in the course of vindication of the victims and the delivery of justice.”
It is understood the 17 men who have now been charged will be questioned in the coming weeks by the Deputy Prosecutor of the Piraeus Naval Court.
The court will then decide whether to send them to full trial or dismiss the charges.
It is not immediately clear what punishment the coastguards could receive if found guilty.
Greece has previously told the BBC its Coast Guard fully respects human rights and has rescued more than 250,000 people at sea in the past decade.
[BBC]
In the second half of the 19th Century, photography became one of the British Empire’s most persuasive instruments for knowing – and classifying – India.
A new exhibition – called Typecasting: Photographing the Peoples of India, 1855-1920, and organised by DAG, the Delhi-based art gallery – brings together nearly 200 rare photographs from a period when the camera was deployed to classify communities, fix identities and make India’s complex social differences legible to the colonial government.
Spanning 65 years, the exhibition maps an expansive human geography: from Lepcha and Bhutia communities in the north-east to Afridis in the north-west; from Todas in the Nilgiris to Parsi and Gujarati elites in western India.
It also turns its gaze to those assigned to the lower rungs of the colonial social order – dancing girls, agricultural labourers, barbers and snake charmers.
These images did not merely document India’s diversity; they actively shaped it, translating fluid, lived realities into apparently stable and knowable “types”.
Curated by historian Sudeshna Guha, the exhibition centres on folios from The People of India, the influential eight-volume photographic survey published between 1868 and 1875. From this core, it expands outward to include albumen and silver-gelatin prints by photographers such as Samuel Bourne, Lala Deen Dayal, John Burke and the studio Shepherd & Robertson – practitioners whose images helped define the visual language of that time.
“Taken together, this material tells the history of ethnographic photography and its effect on the British administration and the Indian population, in a project which in size and depth has never before been seen in India,” says Ashish Anand, CEO of DAG.
Here’s a selection of images from the exhibition:
[BBC]
A co-founder of online fashion giant Asos died after falling from a high-rise apartment block in Thailand, police have said.
Quentin Griffiths has been named by Thai police as the man found dead on the ground in the eastern seaside city of Pattaya on 9 February.
A police investigator told the BBC Griffiths, a British passport holder, was by himself, his room was locked from the inside, and there was no trace of any break-ins at the time of the death. An autopsy did not reveal any evidence of foul play.
Griffiths co-founded Asos in 2000 and remained a significant shareholder after leaving the firm five years later.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are supporting the family of a British national who has died in Thailand and are in contact with the local authorities.”
Police in Pattaya told the BBC Griffiths was found dead outside a luxury hotel where he had been staying in as a long-term resident in a suite on the 17th floor.
He was involved in two ongoing court cases that might have caused him stress, police also told the BBC.
Griffiths was separated from his second wife, a Thai national, and had reportedly been engaged in a legal dispute with her over a business they ran together, the BBC understands.
He co-founded Asos in London with Nick Robertson, Andrew Regan and Deborah Thorpe.
Its name originally stood for As Seen On Screen as it sold fashion inspired by clothing worn by TV and film stars.
It grew to become an online fashion marketplace stocking hundreds of brands as well as its own lines and at one time was valued at more than £6bn.
Its largest shareholders include Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen – who owns Danish clothing giant Bestseller and Mike Ashley, owner of Frasers Group.
[BBC]
A Japanese city has received a hefty donation to help fix its ageing water system: 21kg (46lb) in gold bars.
The gold bars, worth an estimated 560 million yen ($3.6m; £2.7m), were given last November by a donor who wished to remain anonymous, Osaka Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama told a press conference on Thursday.
Home to nearly three million people, Osaka is a commercial hub located in the Japan’s Kansai region and the country’s third-largest city.
But like many Japanese cities, Osaka’s water and sewage pipes are ageing – a growing cause for safety concern.
Osaka recorded more than 90 cases of water pipe leaks under its roads in the 2024 fiscal year, according to the city’s waterworks bureau.
“Tackling ageing water pipes requires a huge investment. So I have nothing but appreciation,” Yokoyama told reporters on Thursday, in response to a question about the huge gold donation.
Yokoyama said the amount was “staggering” and he was “lost for words”.
The same mystery donor had previously given 500,000 yen in cash for municipal waterworks, he added.
The city’s waterworks bureau said in a statement on Thursday that it was grateful for the gold donation and would put it to good use – including tackling the deterioration of water pipes.
More than 20% of Japan’s water pipes have passed their legal service life of 40 years, according to local media.
Sinkholes have also become increasingly common in Japanese cities, many of which have ageing sewage pipeline infrastructure.
Last year, a massive sinkhole in Saitama Prefecture swallowed the cab of a truck, killing its driver. The sinkhole was believed to have been caused by a ruptured sewage pipe.
That incident prompted Japanese authorities to step up efforts to replace corroded pipes across the country. But budget issues have stalled the progress of such pipe renewal works.
[BBC]
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