Greece blames smugglers over migrant deaths but early accounts have been questioned before

The death of 15 Afghan and Moroccan migrants after a speedboat carrying them collided with a Greek coastguard vessel has been presented by Greek authorities as an open and shut case.

A statement issued late on Tuesday blamed "smugglers" for "failing to comply with the [Hellenic] Coast Guard's visual and audible signals" to turn their boat around.

It said the migrant boat was making dangerous manoeuvres before veering into a patrol vessel, off the Chios Strait. The message was that this caused the deaths and the injuries of 24 others who were trying to reach European soil.

But experience tells us to be wary of such instant and unequivocal explanations.

In the summer of 2023, I arrived in the southern Greek port city of Kalamata on the day more than 650 migrants were feared to have drowned.

Already, an official Greek narrative had been established that this was a tragedy caused by criminal gangs cramming too many people into an unseaworthy fishing boat.

We were told there was nothing that could have been done to save those onboard, including the estimated 100 women and children who were travelling in the hold of the Adriana.

But survivors then told the BBC that coastguards had caused the migrant boat to capsize following a botched attempt to tow it.

As we returned to Greece to investigate over the following months, more and more contradictions appeared in the official account.

Nearly three years on, four senior figures in the Greek coastguard, including its current commander, are among 21 officers now facing criminal prosecution for negligent manslaughter over what was the worst loss of life in the Mediterranean Sea for a decade.

It is far too early to draw confident comparisons between 2023 and this latest case, but it may be useful to point out what has happened before where the coastguard has been present when migrants have died at sea.

As for Tuesday's fatal incident, near Chios, much of the Greek media has been amplifying the story that the migrant speedboat was manoeuvring dangerously and would not stop.

There has so far been no testimony from the survivors to back up or question that account.

There is also a lack of independent, third-party evidence that may support the scenario where the packed migrants boat had deliberately hit the specialist military speedboat.

Any video of the supposed collision could be hugely significant.

But it is not clear whether the coastguard was recording its interaction with the migrant boat.

In the case of the Adriana disaster in 2023, the patrol ship involved had been equipped with state-of-the-art, EU-funded, cameras.

They had been deactivated.

Mobile phone footage - taken by their coastguards or the migrants during this latest fatal crossing - could also be pivotal.

Again, we do not know what has happened to the phones owned by those involved on Tuesday night.

But we do know that in the 2023 case 20 mobiles belonging to migrants went missing for 25 days.

They were eventually discovered on the island of Kythira, 60 nautical miles from Kalamata, after being left in a bag on a coastguard vessel, so said officials.

Following previous migrant crossings, Greek authorities have often confiscated communication equipment of those detained for making illegal crossings, while they investigate who - if anyone - had been a smuggler, not merely a paying passenger.

Greece remains a key route for people from the Middle East and elsewhere wanting to reach the European Union.

The UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, says 41,696 people arrived in Greece by sea in 2025.

That is a fall from 54,417 in 2024.

Last year 107 people were reported dead or missing attempting the crossing to the Greek mainland and islands.

Since 2019, the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has pursued a much tougher approach against illegal migration.

This has proved to be popular among many voters and was an important issue during the last general election, in 2023, which Mitsotakis's party won.

However, human rights groups have consistently accused the Greek coastguard of pursuing dangerous and illegal policies at sea.

The Greek government and the coastguard deny these accusations, saying its officers act within the law and have saved hundreds of migrants' lives at sea over the past decade.

But the EU border agency said last year that it was reviewing 12 cases of potential human rights violations by Greece, including some allegations that migrants seeking asylum were pushed back from Greece's frontiers.

Following the latest fatal crossing, opposition politicians have quickly condemned the Greek coastguard.

Gabriel Sakellaridis, a senior figure in the left-wing Nea Aristera party, posted on social media: "Another Coast Guard deterrence operation, with specific political instructions from the government, which in the name of the 'tough' anti-immigration policy has turned Greek waters into a cemetery."

In the Greek parliament on Wednesday, Immigration Minister Thanos Plevris said he trusted the account of the coastguards who were operating off Chios on Tuesday night.

He said they should be praised, in contrast to human rights activists who complained but saved no-one.

Many details about this latest incident are still unknown.

History suggests we may never know what really happened this time in the darkness of the Mediterranean Sea.