Barack Obama questions why Oceangate Titan sub tragedy got MORE coverage than refugee boat sinking

Barack Obama has questioned why the Titan sub tragedy that killed five men has received wall-to-wall media coverage – while a boat sinking with 700 refugees on board has been ignored.

The former president drew the comparisons while speaking at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation in Athens on Thursday, hours before the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed the submersible imploded.

He said it is ‘untenable’ that the doomed expedition got more attention than the hundreds killed when a fishing trawler capsized 50 miles off the coast of Greece.

The overcrowded boat with hundreds of Pakistani, Syrian, Egyptian and Palestinian refugees went down on June 14 – two days before the $250,000-a-head OceanGate tour to the Titanic wreckage was reported missing.

Eighty-two passengers have been found dead, 104 out of the more than 750 on board have been rescued, and the rest are still missing. More than 100 children are among the missing.

Barack Obama has questioned why the Titan sub tragedy that killed five has received wall-to-wall media coverage – while a boat sinking with 700 refugees on board has been ignored

‘There is a potential tragedy unfolding with the submarine that is getting minute-to-minute coverage all around the world,’ he said. 

‘This is understandable because we all want and pray that these folks are rescued.

‘But, the fact that this has got so much more attention than the fact that 700 people sank is an untenable situation,’.

The International Organisation for Migration called it one of ‘the worst sea tragedies in the last decade’. 

Obama also brought up the parallels in an interview with CNN earlier on Thursday.

When talking about how democracies can’t thrive with high levels of inequality, he used the sub tragedy as an example.

‘In some ways, it’s indicative of the degree to which people’s life chances have grown so disparate.’ 

On Thursday it was revealed the five inside OceanGate’s Titan were killed instantly when the submersible suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ just 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic 

The overcrowded boat with hundreds of Pakistani, Syrian, Egyptian and Palestinian refugees went down on June 14 – two days before the $250,000-a-head OceanGate tour to the Titanic wreckage went missing. It is pictured before capsizing  

Medical staffs carry a survivor of the fishing boat tragedy on a stretcher outside a warehouse at the port in Kalamata town

Obama conducted the talk and interview while in Athens with wife Michelle and two daughters Malia and Sasha. On Wednesday they visited the Acropolis to enjoy some downtime.

On Thursday it was revealed the five inside Titan were killed instantly when the submersible suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ just 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic.

The voyage took them 12,500ft underwater where few rescue vessels would be able to find it. 

The victims are OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19. 

A remotely operated submarine from a Canadian ship found debris on the ocean floor.

Shahzada Dawood, 48, a UK-based board member of the Prince’s Trust charity, and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, perished in the tragedy

A satellite image shows ships taking part in the search and rescue operations associated with the missing Titan submersible near the wreck of the Titanic

It’s likely the men died Sunday, before military planes using sonar buoys detected what they thought could have been SOS ‘banging’ sounds in the water. The US Navy said they heard a sound consistent with an implosion when communications were lost around two hours after they dived. 

The Navy passed on that information to the Coast Guard, an insider said.

The migrant boat sinking in one of the deepest areas of the Mediterranean Sea sparked a massive rescue operation that involved a 300ft megayacht.

Coast guard, navy and merchant vessels fanned out for a vast search-and-rescue operation that also included a plane and a helicopter to rescue those who had been attempting to travel from Libya to Italy. 

Harrowing images showed medics rushing the survivors off the yacht onto stretchers, while others walked around barefoot and draped in blankets.

Women and children were likely trapped in the hold as the vessel overturned and went down in the early hours of the morning, which could make the sinking one of the deadliest ever in the central Mediterranean Sea.

Nine survivors been arrested on suspicion of people smuggling – including the ship’s captain – as attention turned to Greece’s failure to act before the overcrowded vessel capsized.