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    Was This Scrap of Cloth Once a Tunic Worn by Alexander the Great?

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    A Greek researcher says a piece of purple-and-white fabric discovered decades ago in a tomb in northern Greece may have belonged to Alexander. Others disagree.Could it be a scrap of Alexander the Great’s clothing?A fragile piece of purple-and-white fabric, frayed over more than two millenniums, that was found in one of a series of tombs in northern Greece decades ago is at the center of a new claim ruffling feathers in the country’s archaeological community.The debate erupted this month after Antonis Bartsiokas, a paleoanthropologist at Democritus University of Thrace, published a paper arguing that one of the tombs, believed up to now to house the remains and treasures of Alexander’s father, actually held items belonging to Alexander the Great himself and his half brother. That included a purple chiton, or tunic.The claim challenges the work of one Greece’s most renowned archaeologists, Manolis Andronicos, who led the discovery of the tomb in 1977. Mr. Andronicos, who died in 1992, had asserted that the tomb and artifacts belonged to the father, Philip II of Macedon, whose military victories united ancient Greece and laid the foundation for his son’s conquests from Egypt to India.Mr. Bartsiokas, who specializes in the microanalysis of fossils, instead believes it was Alexander’s half brother, Arrhidaeus, or Philip III, who was buried in the tomb, along with some of Alexander’s possessions, including the chiton, a piece of purple cotton with a layer of white fabric in between.If the new claim were confirmed, it could upend long-held beliefs about one of the most important burial sites in Greece. Some Greek archaeologists say, however, that the claim is without substance.Mr. Bartsiokas said he used new technology and his interpretation of an ancient frieze found in the tomb to make his case.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Deadly Toll in Greece as Heat Waves Sweep the Country

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      Several foreigners have gone missing or been found dead after going out for walks in recent days as temperatures in Greece soar.Heat waves that have swept across Greece this month continued to exact a deadly toll over the weekend, with the authorities on Sunday reporting another death on a Greek island. At least six tourists remain missing on Greek islands.The authorities said that a body of a man had been found Saturday on the island of Samos, where a Dutch hiker has been missing for a week. The body has not yet been identified. Searches were also underway for the six other tourists who have gone missing on Greek islands amid searing temperatures this month.“The problem of missing hikers is not new — we have it every year,” said Constantina Dimoglidou, a police spokeswoman. “But this year, it seems more people became disoriented during the heat wave.”One of the missing was Albert Calibet, 59, a retired police officer who is a dual citizen of France and the United States, on the Aegean island of Amorgos. Mr. Calibet had set out on a trek alone on Tuesday morning, Ms. Dimoglidou said.Also missing were two Frenchwomen, aged 73 and 64, on another Aegean island, Sikinos; an Israeli couple in the area of Vytina in the Peloponnese peninsula; and a 55-year-old United States citizen on the islet of Mathraki near Corfu, the authorities said.The announcements came only days after the remains of Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist and documentary maker, were found on the island of Symi after his disappearance during a walk. At least three other tourists have died while out walking during the extreme heat this month.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Greece Closes Schools and Acropolis Amid Heat

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      Concerns are also growing for two foreign hikers who have gone missing on Greek islands amid the soaring temperatures.Intense heat in Greece prompted a mini lockdown for two days starting on Wednesday, with some schools closing and the Acropolis restricting visiting hours, as the authorities searched for two foreign hikers just a few days after a British medical journalist was found dead on the island of Symi after going for a walk in searing heat.The onset of sweltering temperatures, which meteorologists said might set a record on Thursday, prompted the Health Ministry to issue a warning to older people and people with chronic ailments to stay indoors. The authorities also advised anyone who works outdoors to avoid strenuous activity from noon to 5 p.m.Temperatures were forecast to reach 41 Celsius, or 105.8 Fahrenheit, in Athens on Wednesday and rise to 42 Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit) on Thursday before dipping on Friday, according to Greece’s National Meteorological Service. The heat elsewhere in the Greek mainland was expected to reach 43 Celsius.Walking up Lycabettus Hill in Athens on Wednesday. Temperatures were forecast to reach 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the city on Wednesday and 107.6 degrees on Thursday.Alkis Konstantinidis/ReutersThe tinderbox conditions also raised concerns about wildfires after a disastrous summer last year, when wildfires killed more than 20 people in Greece and razed vast areas of forestland. Greece’s civil protection authority and the army were conducting 24-hour patrols of major forests this week in an effort to prevent fires from breaking out.Meteorologists have warned that Europe is on course to have another scorching summer. Last summer’s heat and wildfires hurt some Greek businesses that rely on tourism, although the country still reported record tourism revenue for the year overall. This year, while many visitors still plan to visit the Mediterranean nation, others are opting for cooler Northern European countries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Have Wine for Breakfast, Put On a 51-Pound Suit and Get to the Battlefield

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      One by one, Greek soldiers, bellies full from a breakfast of red wine and dry bread, armed and clad themselves in a bulky, buglike suit of armor as they prepared for battle.They aimed their spears at wooden targets, and their chariot was connected to a treadmill motor, but for 11 hours, these elite soldiers from the Hellenic Armed Forces pretended to fight as if it was the 15th century B.C.They had been recruited for a study to determine if the Dendra panoply, a suit of armor from 3,500 years ago considered to be one of the oldest known from the Bronze Age in Europe, could be worn in battle. Or if it was only ceremonial, as some scholars have previously argued.The soldiers wore a replica of the suit, and scientists tracked their blood-glucose levels, heart rates and other physiological measures, finding that the men’s bodies could handle the strain of the armor, according to a paper published in the journal PLOS One on May 22.Andreas Flouris, the lead author of the paper and the director of the FAME Lab at the University of Thessaly in Volos, Greece, where the battles took place, said that the simulated combat, as well as other research components, showed that the armor would have been “a very advanced piece of military technology” at the time.“If you’re carrying a piece of wood or a stone or maybe something with a bit of bronze in the front, like a spear, somebody wearing this armor looks like a giant robot in front of you,” said Dr. Flouris, a professor of physiology at the University of Thessaly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Greece Is Betting Big on Liquefied Natural Gas From the U.S.

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      When a withering financial crisis forced Greece to rethink its economy a decade ago, it bet big on green power​. Since then, Greece’s energy transition has been so swift “it almost feels utopian​,”​ one Greek environmentalist said.​Mountainous ridgelines and arid islands ​are covered in wind turbines and solar panels​ that ​today provide nearly two-thirds of the nation’s electricity.​​​But ​now Greece​ is deliberately pivoting back toward fossil fuels, just not to burn at home. This time it’s betting that it can become one of Europe’s main suppliers of natural gas, with much of it shipped from the United States.Both Greek and European Union subsidies have funded new pipelines that crisscross the country and connect to a brand-new import terminal that will send gas to a broad swath of Central and Eastern Europe for decades to come.The investments in Greece are part of a deluge of investments into natural gas around the world, with significant consequences for climate change. In coming years, nearly a trillion and a half dollars will go into constructing pipelines and terminals, according to Global Energy Monitor. Twenty percent of that spending is in Europe.The world’s pivot to gas speaks to a kind of hedging that increasingly defines global climate negotiations: While nations have agreed on the necessity to transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible, almost all major economic powers are promoting gas as a “transition fuel.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      5 Takeaways From the Greek Election

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      Voters seemed to embrace Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s approach to the economy and tough stance on migration, and were less concerned about revelations of spying on the opposition.Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the leader of the conservative New Democracy party who has presided over a period of economic stability and tough anti-migration policies in Greece, was sworn in on Monday for a second term as prime minister after a landslide victory that gave him a clear mandate for the next four years.The result made clear that Greeks, who endured a decade-long financial crisis, were much less concerned with scandals, including accusations of the authorities’ spying on their own people, or disasters such as the fatal shipwreck of a boat carrying hundreds of migrants, than they were with Mr. Mitsotakis’s pledges to keep the country on the road of economic and political stability.Mr. Mitsotakis, a supporter of Ukraine who has maintained good relations with the European Union, has also vowed to stand up to pressure from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who also recently won re-election. Here are some of the lessons from the results in Greece.Tough migration policies are good politicsGreece, led by Mr. Mitsotakis, has done the European Union’s unpleasant work of blocking migrants from reaching the continent with hard-line policies and reception centers that critics equate to prisons. Voters appeared to reward him for the significant reduction of arrivals in the country since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015.Revelations that the Greek Coast Guard has been illegally pushing back migrants by land and sea, and, more recently, questions about the Greek authorities’ fatal decision not to immediately come to the assistance of a ship this month that ultimately sank, killing hundreds off the coast, have infuriated migrant advocates.Survivors of the migrant ship that sank off the coast of Greece this month waited to be transported to a refugee camp in Kalamata, in the south of the country. Eirini Vourloumis for The New York TimesBut not Greek voters.On the campaign trail, Mr. Mitsotakis noted that the number of migrant arrivals was down 90 percent, from more than a million nearly a decade ago, and Greeks appeared more than willing to stomach the harsh tactics he employed.They apparently supported the patrols of the Aegean Sea and the extension of a European Union-subsidized fence along the country’s northern land border with Turkey, which Mr. Mitsotakis had linked to national defense. Mr. Erdogan, the Turkish leader, had sought to exert pressure and wrest concessions from the European Union by allowing migrants to cross the borders.One opinion poll last week showed that seven in 10 Greeks were in favor of the fence, which the previous conservative administration had pledged to extend by some 22 miles, to about 87 miles, by the end of this year.Spying isn’t a deal breakerSpying on an opposition politician does not generally go over well in Western democracies. So when it was revealed last August that Greece’s state intelligence service had been monitoring a prominent opposition leader, and subsequently journalists and others, analysts anticipated political fallout for Mr. Mitsotakis.When use of the spyware Predator was found on some of the same devices, it seemed likely to explode into a full-blown scandal. Instead, Greek voters mostly shrugged.Nikos Androulakis, the head of the socialist Pasok party, speaking last a week at an election rally in Athens. Alkis Konstantinidis/ReutersThe surveillance of Nikos Androulakis, the leader of the socialist Pasok party, and of several others, was never directly linked to Mr. Mitsotakis, who had assumed greater authority of the intelligence service but repeatedly denied any knowledge of the monitoring. Heads rolled. Close advisers to Mr. Mitsotakis, including his nephew, fell on swords. And the scandal blew over.The reaction was endlessly frustrating for the leftist Syriza party, which sought to exploit the apparent espionage in part by trying, and failing, to to form an alliance of grievance with Mr. Androulakis and his Pasok party.In the end, the spying claims ranked close to the bottom of voters’ concerns in opinion polls, while the economy, Greek-Turkish relations and concerns about the health care system topped the list.It’s the economy, stupidWhat Greeks did care about, and significantly more than anything else, was the economy and stability. After a decade-long financial crisis that erupted in 2010, Mr. Mitsotakis persuaded Greeks that the country had made enormous strides under his watch and that he deserved another four years to finish the job.He had some good data to point to. Growth in Greece is twice the eurozone average. Wages and pensions have increased. Foreign investors have returned. Greek bonds, long at junk status, are now expected to be restored to investment grade, which will lower borrowing costs.A market in Athens in June.Byron Smith for The New York TimesGreeks preferred this path of stability rather than returning to Syriza, the party that was in power when Greece nearly crashed out of the eurozone in 2015.Speaking as preliminary results came in on Sunday night, Mr. Mitsotakis said he aimed to achieve more in a second term, to “transform” Greece and build a country with “more prosperity and more justice for all.”Deep economic problems, including rising costs and questions of inequality, remain, but Mr. Mitsotakis convinced the vast majority of Greeks that the way to address them was to keep on his conservative government’s path.The right wing rises in southern EuropeThe end of the last decade was marked by intense anxiety in the European establishment about populist and nationalist parties eroding the European Union from within. Although that fear has mostly passed for now, conservatives are making significant inroads in the bloc’s southern flank.In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of the hard-right Brothers of Italy party is firmly in control, although many of the worst fears of liberals have not come to fruition. In Spain, polls suggest that elections next month could bring the conservative People’s Party to power, most likely with the hard-right party Vox as a coalition partner, an alliance that until recently seemed out of the question.Supporters of Mr. Mitsotakis celebrated outside New Democracy headquarters in Athens after his victory on Sunday.Yorgos Karahalis/Associated PressAnd now in Greece, the landslide victory of Mr. Mitsotakis gives him a freer hand to impose his economic vision. But it also allows him to continue his crackdown on migrant arrivals, a policy that is detested by rights groups but is appreciated in Brussels, a reflection of just how much the status quo has shifted to the right on the issue.Exhaustion with migration is surely an important driver of the shift, but so is an overall reassertion of national identities, if not outright nationalism, after years of campaigning against meddling by the European Union.A Mitsotakis dynasty?The return of Mr. Mitsotakis to power is not just a personal victory — it also elevates his family to something approaching dynasty status in Greek politics.His father, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, governed as a reformer as prime minister from 1990 to 1993 but left office as a divisive figure in a volatile period for Greek politics.His sister, Dora Bakoyannis, was mayor of Athens and a former foreign minister, and her son, Kostas Bakoyannis, is currently the capital’s mayor. Another nephew, Grigoris Dimitriadis, was Mr. Mitsotakis’s point man for the state intelligence service but quit in the wake of the surveillance scandal.Kostas Bakoyannis, the prime minister’s nephew and mayor of Athens, is part of what appears to be something resembling a political dynasty.Eirini Vourloumis for The New York TimesThe opposition sought to portray Mr. Mitsotakis as an arrogant, autocratic and out-of-touch elitist who was both a beneficiary and perpetrator of nepotism, but that did not seem to resonate with voters.“I will be the prime minister of all Greeks,” Mr. Mitsotakis said on Sunday night after preliminary results rolled in. “I will remain committed to my national duty without tolerating any arrogant or conceited behavior.”A new political landscapeNew Democracy took easily the biggest portion of the vote, with 40.5 percent, compared with 17.8 percent for Syriza in second. That allowed Mr. Mitsotakis to portray the victory as evidence that his party was the only dominant force in a now fragmented political landscape.“The strongest center-right party in Europe,” he said on Sunday night. But the marginalized far right had a good day, too, with a little-known nationalist party, Spartans, recording a surprisingly strong showing and comfortably crossing the 3 percent threshold for representation in Parliament, winning 4.6 percent of the vote.Spartans, backed by a jailed leader of the defunct neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, joined two other hard-right parties to claim 34 seats. More

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      Greece Election: Kyriakos Mitsotakis Claims ‘Strong Mandate’ With Win

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      His party’s election victory comes as the country experiences strong economic growth, with voters seemingly willing to look past scandals and disasters that have tarnished his government.Greek voters on Sunday overwhelmingly re-elected the conservative New Democracy party, preliminary results showed, setting the stage for its leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, to strengthen his grip on power with an absolute majority and what he called a “strong mandate” for the foreseeable future.With his landslide victory, voters appeared to have overlooked his government’s ties to a series of scandals and embrace his promise of continued economic stability and prosperity.With 91 percent of the votes counted at 9:45 p.m., the party had 40.5 percent, and was poised to win 158 seats in Greece’s 300-member Parliament, far ahead of the opposition Syriza party, which was in second place with 17.8 percent, with 47 seats. The socialist Pasok party took third place, with 12.5 percent, and got 32 seats.In a statement from his party’s headquarters in Athens, the capital, Mr. Mitsotakis described the results as “a strong mandate, to move more quickly along the road of major changes.”He also said of those who had voted: “In a resounding and mature way, they put a definitive end to a traumatic cycle of toxicity that had held the country back and divided society.”Turnout, however, was just over 52 percent, compared with 61 percent in the first elections held in May, according to preliminary results. Earlier on Sunday, Greek television showed images of packed beaches following a final week of campaigning in which politicians had appealed to voters not to forsake their vote for the waves.New Democracy won the first election in May by 20 percentage points — the largest margin in decades. But it had fallen short of the votes necessary for an absolute majority in Parliament. Mr. Mitsotakis, who as prime minister had overseen a period of economic stability and tough anti-migrant measures, opted to head for a second vote conducted under a system that grants bonus seats in Parliament to the winning party.The gambit worked.Now, with an expected solid majority in Parliament, Mr. Mitsotakis will have more freedom in policymaking and will most likely spur international credit rating agencies to lift their ratings on Greece’s bonds — which have lingered in junk status — to the much-coveted investment grade, lowering the country’s borrowing costs.Mr. Mitsotakis was brought to power in the 2019 election, when his party also won 158 seats. He served as prime minister until May this year, then stepped aside following the inconclusive vote.He has vowed to continue focusing on prosperity, appealing to voters who seemed to overlook revelations about the wiretapping of an opposition leader by the state intelligence service, a fatal train crash in February that killed 57 people and a catastrophic shipwreck off Greece that killed hundreds of migrants as the government was facing fierce criticism for its hard-line migration policies.A pro-refugee demonstration this month in Kalamata, Greece. Mr. Mitsotakis’s party secured a solid parliamentary majority despite criticism of his government’s tough anti-migrant measures.Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times“I never promise miracles,” he said on Sunday, “but I can assure you that I will remain faithful to my duty, with planning, devotion and chiefly hard work.” He added that his second term could “transform” Greece with dynamic growth rates that would increase wages and reduce inequalities, and he vowed, “I will be the prime minister of all Greeks.”Greece’s economy stabilized under Mr. Mitsotakis after a decade-long financial crisis that shattered Greek society and shook the eurozone. Growth this year has been twice the eurozone’s average, spurred by his government’s tax cuts, while wages and pensions have risen and large investors are again pumping money into the economy.These achievements have reassured many Greeks who feared a return to the uncertainty and upheaval of the crisis years, analysts say.“One should not underestimate what this economic stability and growth means in material but also in psychological terms for a country which has been on the brink of economic collapse in the previous decade,” said Lamprini Rori, a professor of political analysis at the University of Athens.Strengthening the country’s international image and position, and bolstering people’s sense of security and national pride, all meant a “positive calculus” for New Democracy, she said.The center-left Syriza is led by Alexis Tsipras, under whose watch Greece came close to leaving the eurozone in 2015. Mr. Tsipras had promised justice and change, calling Mr. Mitsotakis arrogant and his government “an unaccountable regime that is a danger to society.”On Sunday, Mr. Tsipras said the election result was chiefly negative for society and democracy. The fact that three hard-right parties were set to enter Parliament, along with New Democracy, was a “warning bell,” he said.Analysts said the opposition had trouble gaining traction amid a rejuvenated economy.“The opposition’s narrative was ‘down with the junta’ and ‘we’ve become a banana republic,’” said Harry Papasotiriou, a professor of international relations at Panteio University in Athens. “But people saw economic growth.”With New Democracy’s dominance pretty much undisputed, Mr. Tsipras is likely to face new questions about his future, as there is no clear potential successor to the charismatic former communist firebrand.A campaign ad in favor of Alexis Tsipras and the Syriza party, which he leads, in Athens this past week. Byron Smith for The New York TimesSyriza also had to contend with increased support for hard-left fringe parties, including Sailing for Freedom, which was formed by the former Syriza official Zoe Konstantopoulou and was poised to gain national representation for the first time. It picked up 3.1 percent of the vote, or eight seats.The support for fringe parties demonstrated the failure of both the Syriza and Pasok parties to convince voters that they can offer a dynamic opposition, Professor Rori said.Apart from Mr. Mitsotakis’s strong showing, the small, relatively unknown party, Spartans, did surprisingly well, and appeared poised to enter Parliament with 13 seats after winning 4.7 percent of the votes.The party, which has a nationalist, anti-migrant stance, had not registered in opinion polls until a few weeks before the elections in June, when Ilias Kasidiaris, the jailed former spokesman of the now-defunct neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, publicly backed it after his own party had been banned from running because of his criminal convictions.In a televised statement, the Spartans’ leader, Vasilis Stingas, thanked Mr. Kasidiaris for his support, which he said had been the “fuel” for the party’s success, adding, “We’re here to unite, not divide.”Other smaller parties on track to enter Parliament include the little-known ultra-Orthodox, pro-Russia, hard-right Niki party, with 10 seats. It started gaining support in the weeks before the May election.The presence of new smaller anti-systemic parties in Greece’s next Parliament will bring more voices into the chorus of criticism against Mr. Mitsotakis — but not necessarily in a productive way, according to Professor Rori.She remembered chaotic sessions involving Golden Dawn and Ms. Konstantopoulou, and fears a degeneration of Greece’s political opposition.“It was all about impressions, stalemates, toxicity,” she said. More

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      Today’s Top News: How G.O.P. Rivals View Trump’s Indictment, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app includes podcasts, narrated articles from the newsroom and other publishers, as well as exclusive new shows — including this one — which we’re making available to readers for a limited time. Download the audio app here.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.Former President Donald J. Trump’s Republican competitors are desperate to get media coverage for their campaigns and are dreading what threatens to be an endless indictment news cycle.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesOn Today’s Episode:G.O.P. Rivals See Trump’s Indictment as a Big Problem (for Them), with our political reporter Jonathan SwanAt Least 79 Die as Boat Carrying Migrants Sinks Near Greece, with our correspondent Niki KitsantonisSouthern Baptists Vote to Further Expand Restrictions on Women as Leaders, with our national religion correspondent Elizabeth DiasEli Cohen More

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      Greece Continues Search for Migrants After Crowded Ship Capsizes

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      The authorities revised the official toll of the deadly shipwreck down by one, to 78, but there are fears that hundreds of people may be missing.The grim search by Greek authorities for migrants after the country’s deadliest shipwreck in years moved into a second day on Thursday, though the prospects of finding survivors was slim and hundreds were feared to be missing after their fishing ship capsized about 50 miles off the coast.Scores of bodies were recovered from the sea and 104 people were rescued on Wednesday, after their vessel foundered in the Mediterranean Sea, off the southern coast of Greece, five days after setting sail from Libya bound for Italy.As several vessels helped gather the bodies from the sea, the Greek Shipping Ministry lowered the number of confirmed deaths by one, to 78, on Thursday morning after a count at the port of Kalamata, but the full toll is believed to be much higher.Survivors have told Greek officials that as many as 500 people were aboard, according to a Shipping Ministry official, who spoke on a condition of anonymity in keeping with the ministry’s past practice.Panagiotis Nikas, the regional governor for the Peloponnese region, told Greek news outlets on Wednesday that some survivors had suggested as many 750 passengers were on the ship, adding that the claim was being checked.Photographs of the vessel, a fishing trawler, taken by a Greek Coast Guard helicopter on Tuesday showed it to be hugely overcrowded with people none of whom appeared to be wearing life vests.Emergency workers rushed some survivors on stretchers to a nearby tent to receive medical aid.Hellenic Coastguard, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA C-130 transport plane aided the search overnight, according to the ministry, launching flares into the night sky to illuminate the sea and trace any survivors, but no one was found.Officials have conceded that any hopes of finding additional survivors, or even victims, are remote, because the boat sank in one of the deepest spots of the Mediterranean, where the seabed is at a depth of 4,000 meters, or about 2.5 miles.Nevertheless, the efforts continued on Thursday. “There is no plan to stop the search,” Nikolaos Alexiou, a spokesman for the Greek Coast Guard, told state television. “We’re continuing and the search will broaden.”The survivors will be moved to a state camp in Malakasa, north of Athens, as soon as processing by coast guard officials has been completed, the migration ministry said. The authorities were questioning several people from the ship who were believed to be smugglers, state television reported.The survivors, all men, are believed to be from Syria, Egypt and Pakistan. It remained unclear how many women and children might be among the missing.The tragedy unfolded as Greece is preparing for a general election on June 25, and it has prompted political leaders to suspend campaigning as a caretaker government announced three days of national mourning.The migration issue is already very sensitive in Greece, especially in light of the government’s tactics aimed at deterring migration, an approach that has widespread support but has been roundly criticized by rights groups.Greece is a major destination for migrants trying to make their way to Europe, and the sinking was the deadliest such episode off its coast since before 2015, when 70 people died after a boat carrying migrants sank near the island off Lesbos, according to the International Organization for Migration. More