Brother pleads for Greece migrant shipwreck to be raised
STORY: Since his brother went missing in the Greek shipwreck, Adil Hussain leaves the door and window open for his return, and his phone is never off.
Matloob Hussain, from Pakistan, is among hundreds of migrants who are presumed dead after their overcrowded fishing trawler sank off the Greek coast in June.
Several families are calling on authorities to raise the wreck from the seabed and recover the scores of bodies believed to be trapped in the hold.
Hussain said his brother was crammed with others below deck in the boat's refrigerator, according to a survivor who recognized him.
“Before, I had the door closed, and my phone was off when I slept. But now I leave both the door open and the window open in case he comes. And I'm alone all the time, I cry, I can't eat, that's all I'm waiting for in Greece, to find my brother and to leave. I don’t like it now. I can't work now, I have no strength now. I lost everything, we all lost our lives.”
Matloob's bereaved wife can't eat, their daughter is feverish, Adil says.
Greek officials said last month chances of retrieving the vessel were slim because it sank three miles down.
A total of 104 men were rescued and 82 bodies were found but as many as 750 people were believed to be on board.
Lawyers representing families of the missing plan this week to ask judicial authorities investigating the case to salvage the boat as a fundamental obligation towards the victims and their families.
"If they are dead, get them out, that's what I want. We will pay, all the households, if they need to rent something, we will sell our houses, borrow money, if the state can't. Give me the body."
Hussain has worked as a gardener in Greece since 2007 after a perilous journey of his own via Turkey.
He now wants to go home to Pakistan and tells his family not to make the journey, even when they want for work and food.
