Eight people, most of them minors, died in the sinking of a migrant boat off the Greek island of Samos (east), the Greek coast guard announced on Monday.
Thirty-six people were rescued and rescue operations are continuing in the north of this island near the Turkish coast from where many boats carrying migrants wishing to enter the European Union leave, according to the same source. Rescue operations are made difficult by the violent winds blowing in the area.
Greece has seen a 25% increase in the number of arrivals of people fleeing war and poverty since the start of the year and a 30% increase in flows to the Dodecanese archipelago and the southeast Aegean Sea. , the Ministry of Migration indicated at the beginning of November.
“The south-east of the Aegean Sea and the island of Rhodes are currently experiencing migratory pressure,” admitted Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos, assuring that this increase was not really linked to conflicts in the Middle East.
Shipwrecks are numerous and deadly. At the beginning of November, four migrants died off the coast of Rhodes and at the end of October, two migrants drowned near Samos, just a few days after the disappearance of four other people – including two infants – off the island of Kos (southeast).
