Greek port police on Monday said at least 16 people including women and children have died in a suspected refugee boat sinking off the Aegean island of Lesbos.
The bodies of six women, a child and two men were recovered in Greek waters, while the Turkish coast guard found the bodies of another six men and a child, the Greek coast guard said in a statement.
Greek authorities had received no distress call prior to finding the bodies, a coast guard spokeswoman said.
Weather conditions in the area were mild.
Searches continue after a pregnant woman, one of two survivors, told officials that there had been a total of 25 people on board.
According to the two African survivors, the boat capsized on Sunday night, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said.
Greece’s Aegean Sea islands are a primary transit point for refugees seeking to reach Europe from Turkey.
In 2015 and last year, more than 1,000 refugees perished in the dangerous sea crossing.
More than 1 million people have landed in Greece since 2015, many of them fleeing civil war in Syria.
Another entry point is in northern Greece near the Turkish border where there was another accident involving refugees on Monday.
A van carrying 15 refugees overturned in a high-speed chase with police, killing a 35-year-old Iranian on board, Greek police said in a statement.
Three migrants and the driver of the van, a 29-year-old Moldovan, were injured and hospitalized, police said.
Authorities added that as well as the deceased there were five Bangladeshis, three Pakistanis, three Iraqis and three Iranians in the van.
There have been fewer of these deadly accidents in the past year following an accord between the EU and Turkey reached in March last year that has curtailed the influx of refugees.
According to UNHCR, about 4,900 people have tried to make the crossing from Turkey to Greece since the beginning of this year, compared with 173,450 reported arrivals last year.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion