MIGRANTS who said they had paid over £3,000 each to be smuggled into Europe gave chilling accounts yesterday of a collision at sea in which as many as 280 people are feared to have drowned.
Greek police said the migrants from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had told them two vessels packed with people collided about 25 kms east of Malta on Christmas Day.
Mr Ahmad Shahab, from Pakistan, said that hundreds of migrants were forced from a larger ship to a smaller vessel before the collision. He saw his brother drowning.
"Some were lost at sea, some may have made it to Italy on another ship and some ended up in Greece," the Greek Public Order Minister, Mr George Romeos, said. The ministry said 107 immigrants were arrested last Monday when the larger vessel docked at the Greek port of Nafplion. They were interrogated by police.
Mr Shahab told Reuters newsagency: "They forced 318 of us at gunpoint to climb down with ropes from the big ship to the smaller one. The small ship could only take about 100 people. People jumped overboard in rough waters."
He said the larger ship then collided with the smaller one.
"People were desperately screaming for help. I saw my brother go down. I yelled `please, please, he can't swim'. But people from the other ship just looked at the ones drowning. Our ship was nearly cut in half and sank," Mr Shahab said.
Police said Mr Shahab was among only 29 people who were rescued by the larger vessel.
Italian authorities searching the channel between Sicily and Malta say they have found no sign of a collision. But a Maltese armed forces spokesman said it was not unusual for a shipwreck not to be traced if rescuers did not know its exact position.