nine dead in two shipwrecks carrying migrants

Off the Greek islands of Samos and Lesvos, nine people, including six minors, died on Monday November 25 in the sinking of a migrant boat, the Greek coast guard announced.

On the island of Samos, thirty-nine people were rescued and rescue operations continue in the north of this island in the eastern Aegean Sea, close to Turkey and from where many boats carrying migrants leave in search of the European Union, according to the same source. “The sinking of Samos, with the loss of eight innocent lives, including six children, fills us with sadness and anger. The coast guard rescued thirty-nine people, but the smuggling networks (…) will find us against them, with determination, in order to eliminate them”reacted on X the Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum, Nikos Panagiotopoulos.

On the island of Lesvos, the body of a man was also found by the coast guard, who rescued twenty-six people. Survivors of the sinking assure that there were no other passengers on the boat, according to a press release from the port authorities. 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 of the sea Egea, the Ministry of Migration said at the beginning of November. “The southeast of the Aegean Sea and the island of Rhodes are currently experiencing migratory pressure”recognized Mr. Panagiotopoulos, ensuring that this increase was not really linked to the 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 days after the disappearance of four other people – including two infants – off the coast. from the island of Kos (South-East).