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Source: America THE JESUIT REVIEW

It will go down as one of the deadliest migrant disasters in recent Mediterranean history, second only to the April 2015 collision of a smuggling vessel and a cargo off the Libyan coast, which killed over 1,000 people.

On June 14, two hours after midnight, an overloaded fishing boat capsized in international waters near Greece. More than 500 people are thought to have died with the ship, including women and up to 100 children who had been imprisoned in its hold. Only 104 people were rescued from the sea that morning, with no women or children among them, and 81 bodies have been retrieved thus far.

The cause of the boat’s capsize is unknown; some survivors claim the smuggling boat was being pulled by the Greek coast guard when it capsized.

However, Greek officials claim that the ship was never towed by a Greek vessel, and that the migrants, who were aiming to land in Italy, had turned down repeated offers of aid.