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Greece: Dozens Still Missing After Migrant Boat Sinks

This photo provided by the Hellenic Coast Guard shows migrants arrive at a port on the southeastern Aegean Sea island of Kos, Greece, after a rescue operation on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022 (Hellenic Coast Guard via AP)
This photo provided by the Hellenic Coast Guard shows migrants arrive at a port on the southeastern Aegean Sea island of Kos, Greece, after a rescue operation on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022 (Hellenic Coast Guard via AP)
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Greece: Dozens Still Missing After Migrant Boat Sinks

This photo provided by the Hellenic Coast Guard shows migrants arrive at a port on the southeastern Aegean Sea island of Kos, Greece, after a rescue operation on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022 (Hellenic Coast Guard via AP)
This photo provided by the Hellenic Coast Guard shows migrants arrive at a port on the southeastern Aegean Sea island of Kos, Greece, after a rescue operation on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022 (Hellenic Coast Guard via AP)

Greek authorities said a search and rescue operation is ongoing for a second day for dozens of migrants missing after the boat they were on sank in rough seas off a southeastern Greek island.

A Greek navy vessel and three nearby merchant ships were still searching Thursday for between around 30 to 50 people believed missing after the boat that had been carrying them from the Turkish coast of Antalya to Italy capsized in the early hours of Wednesday.

No further survivors had been located since 29 men from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq were rescued shortly after the boat sank about 33 nautical miles (38 miles; 61 kilometers) southeast of the island of Karpathos, the Greek coast guard said. The survivors had told authorities there had been a total of between 60 and 80 people on board the boat.

Greek authorities said the capsizing occurred in international waters, but within Greece’s search and rescue responsibility area, according to The Associate Press.

Two of the survivors were plucked from the sea by an air force helicopter and flown to Karpathos, while the remaining 27 were picked up by a merchant vessel and transported to the island of Kos, where they arrived Wednesday afternoon.

Video released by the coast guard showed the men being transferred from the merchant ship to a coast guard boat which then transported them to Kos. There, dressed in white coveralls and wearing masks, they disembarked, many of them limping but all walking unassisted, and headed to a waiting bus.

It wasn't immediately clear why the boat sank, but weather conditions in the area were rough, with strong winds and choppy seas, authorities said.

The most common sea route for asylum-seekers from the Middle East, Asia and Africa has been from Turkey to the nearby Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.

But with Greek authorities increasing patrols in the area and facing persistent reports of summarily deporting new arrivals to Turkey without allowing them to apply for asylum, many are now attempting the much longer, and more dangerous, route directly to Italy. Greek authorities deny they carry out illegal summary deportations of asylum-seekers.

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Soldier who Blew Up Tesla at Trump Hotel Left Note Saying Blast Was to be a 'Wake Up Call' for US

Flames rise from a Tesla Cybertruck after it exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 1, 2025 in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Alcides Antunes/via REUTERS
Flames rise from a Tesla Cybertruck after it exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 1, 2025 in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Alcides Antunes/via REUTERS
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Soldier who Blew Up Tesla at Trump Hotel Left Note Saying Blast Was to be a 'Wake Up Call' for US

Flames rise from a Tesla Cybertruck after it exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 1, 2025 in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Alcides Antunes/via REUTERS
Flames rise from a Tesla Cybertruck after it exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 1, 2025 in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Alcides Antunes/via REUTERS

A highly decorated Army soldier who fatally shot himself in a Tesla Cybertruck just before it blew up outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left notes saying the New Year's Day explosion was a stunt to serve as a “wake up call” for the country’s ills, investigators said Friday.
Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, also wrote in notes he left on his cellphone that he needed to “cleanse” his mind “of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.” Livelsberger served in the Army since 2006 and deployed twice to Afghanistan.
“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives,” Livelsberger wrote in one letter found by authorities and released Friday.
The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the Trump International Hotel. According to The Associated Press, authorities said that Livelsberger acted alone.
Livelsberger's letters covered a range of topics including political grievances, societal problems and both domestic and international issues, including the war in Ukraine. He said in one letter that the US was “terminally ill and headed toward collapse.”
Tesla engineers, meanwhile, helped extract data from the Cybertruck for investigators, including Livelsberger’s path between charging stations from Colorado through New Mexico and Arizona and on to Las Vegas, according to Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren.
“We still have a large volume of data to go through,” Koren said Friday. “There’s thousands if not millions of videos and photos and documents and web history and all of those things that need to be analyzed.”
The new details came as investigators were still trying to determine whether Livelsberger sought to make a political point with the Tesla and the hotel bearing the president-elect’s name.
Livelsberger harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, law enforcement officials said. In one of the notes he left, he said the country needed to “rally around” Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Musk has recently become a member of Trump’s inner circle. Neither Trump nor Musk was in Las Vegas on Wednesday, the day of the explosion. Both had attended Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at his South Florida estate.
“Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who was struggling with PTSD and other issues,” Spencer Evans, the FBI special agent in charge in Las Vegas, said Friday.
Livelsberger died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Investigators have not yet explained how Livelsberger shot himself inside the Cybertruck while simultaneously igniting fireworks and camp fuel packed inside, causing the explosion.
Among the charred items found inside were a handgun at Livelsberger’s feet, another firearm, fireworks, a passport, a military ID, credit cards, an iPhone and a smartwatch. Authorities said both guns were purchased legally.
In recent years Livelsberger confided to Alicia Arritt, a former girlfriend who had served as an Army nurse, that he faced significant pain and exhaustion she attributed to traumatic brain injury.
He opened up to Arritt, 39, whom he met and began dating in Colorado in 2018, about exhaustion, pain that kept him up at night, and reliving violence from his deployment in Afghanistan, Arritt said.
“My life has been a personal hell for the last year,” he told Arritt in text messages during their early days of dating that she shared with The Associated Press.
The Green Berets are highly trained US Army special forces who specialize in guerrilla warfare and unconventional fighting tactics. Livelsberger rose through the ranks and deployed twice to Afghanistan and served in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo, according to the Army. He recently returned from an overseas assignment in Germany and was on approved leave when he died.
He was awarded five Bronze Stars, including one with a valor device for courage under fire, a combat infantry badge and an Army Commendation Medal with valor.
Authorities searched a townhouse in Livelsberger's hometown of Colorado Springs Thursday as part of the investigation. Neighbors said the man who lived there had a wife and a baby.
Across-the-street neighbor Cindy Helwig said she last saw him when he asked to borrow a tool to fix an SUV.
“He was a normal guy,” said Helwig.
The explosion came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people before being shot to death by police. The FBI says they believe Jabbar acted alone and that it is being investigated as a terrorist attack.