Gulf Cooperation Council - Stop Syrian Refugees from Dying Crossing the Mediterranean. Mecca is closer.

"Mohammed Al Housain, 25, a doctor from Aleppo, remembered seeing the boat toss before finding himself underwater. He couldn't tell where the surface was until he banged his head against the hull. The bow lurched upward as water came in from the stern. Mohammed scrambled up the side of the craft.

The women and children and a man were in the cabin area, which was fast filling with water. They were screaming. "I got the hand of someone, but the window was too small," Mohammed recalled. "I tried again. I could feel their hair. I saw a hand, a watch and ring, then hair. They were already underwater. I swam away because I couldn't stand the screaming."

The boat overturned with another blow from one of the waves. Fadi Mansurati, 25, watched his 26-year-old sister Rose and her seven-year-old son Karlos disappear. His niece Marita, aged four, had scrambled out of the cabin. "I grabbed her instantly and held her," he said. The little girl screamed for her mother. "I was thinking of my family in the cabin," he said. "I was telling myself they will survive."

Fadi held Marita tight as she screamed for her mother. "Don't worry. Mama is coming," he said he told her. Within minutes the screams turned to soft cries. The water was freezing. After an hour he could feel the girl's body had grown cold. Marita was dead. He released her to the sea.

Then Fadi watched as Marita's distraught father, 36-year-old Josef Daoud, took off his life vest and sank beneath the waves. Fadi wanted to follow them to death. But Mohammed hit him to keep him from taking his life. He hit him again to keep him awake."

By Greg Beals in Greece

(Names have been changed to protect identities)