For Kassem Abo Zeed it was running out fast. Hope was the force that had led him to board a plane from Hamburg and fly to Greece after he heard that a boat carrying his wife had capsized off the country’s southern coast. But by 2pm on Thursday, 36 hours after the blue fishing trawler packed with migrants and refugees had sunk in one of the worst maritime disasters in recent Greek history, hope was fading in a way he had prayed would never happen.

 Of the estimated 700 men, women and children believed to have been on the vessel when it left the shores of Libya last week, only 104 have been found alive since it sank in waters described as some of the deepest in the Mediterranean at about midnight on Tuesday.

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