Two dead in a migrant boat sinking off Greece, 18 rescued

At least two people were killed when a migrant boat capsized on Wednesday off the Greek island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea, while 18 others were rescued, Greek port police said.

According to preliminary information, the rubber boat coming from the nearby Turkish coast ran aground on the rocky shores of Ayios Yorgios, east of Lesbos, at about three in the morning local time (1:00 GMT), driven by strong winds reaching speeds of 75-88 kilometres.

The Coast Guard found 18 migrants who were able to disembark and “two bodies in the sea near the coast,” according to a Coast Guard official.

According to the migrants’ testimonies, there were 36 people on board the boat. The island is being searched for the other 16 people who authorities say were dispersed upon disembarkation.

Due to the navigation ban today in Greece due to bad weather conditions, Coast Guard patrol boats cannot conduct inspections at sea.

Lesbos, like other Greek islands in the eastern Aegean Sea, is one of the gateways for migrants to the European Union. Despite the rescue operations of boats facing difficulties, which are carried out by the Greek authorities with the assistance of Frontex (the European border control agency), many fatal shipwrecks occur every year.

One of them occurred on June 14, when at least 82 people died and up to 750 were missing, according to non-governmental organizations, in the sinking of a dilapidated fishing ship that left Libya heading to Italy off the coast of the Peloponnese Peninsula, southwest of Greece.

This tragedy raised many questions about the responsibility of the Greek authorities, who are regularly accused of carrying out illegal returns of migrants to limit the number of arrivals to Greek territory.