Naked and helpless in the water, Usman Siddique saw the Greek coastguard ship ‘looking at us but not rescuing us’
Usman Siddique, 27, from the city of Gujrat in the Punjab province of Pakistan, was on board the fishing trawler carrying hundreds of people from Libya to Italy that sank off the coast of Greece in June. As many as 500 people are missing. A recent investigation suggested that Greek coastguard attempts to tow the fishing trawler may have caused the vessel to sink. Siddique tells his story:
We were rescued around five or six hours after the shipwreck. I was in such a bad condition. I was totally naked. To save themselves, someone held my pants while I was trying to escape the sinking ship. I had to remove them to save myself.
