Oct 19 (Reuters) – Twelve migrants drowned in two separate incidents off the Greek islands of Lesbos and Samos in the northeastern Aegean Sea on Monday, after their boats capsized as the coast guard chased them, authorities said.
Five men and one woman died after a speedboat carrying migrants from Turkey made a sudden manoeuvre and overturned roughly four nautical miles north of Samos, the Greek coast guard said.
Fourteen men survived and a search-and-rescue operation was under way. Authorities arrested one of the survivors, an Iranian national, on suspicion of migrant smuggling.
Earlier, four men, one woman and an infant died when their boat collided with a Greek coast guard vessel and overturned off the area of Agrilia in Lesbos. Eight survivors were taken to hospital.
Authorities arrested a 37-year-old Turkish national who was among the eight survivors and identified him as the suspected smuggler and operator of the boat.
The government vowed “zero tolerance” towards migrant smugglers, whom it blamed for the deaths.
On the incident off Lesbos, Greece’s shipping minister Vassilis Kikilias said evidence so far indicated the speedboat struck the left side of a coast guard vessel with its bow, adding that the exact circumstances were under investigation.
“Our position is non-negotiable: zero tolerance for smugglers,” he said in a post on X.
Greece, for years a favoured gateway to Europe for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, was at the front line of Europe’s migration crisis in 2015-2016 and nearly 1 million people landed on its islands, mainly from Turkey.
It has since toughened its stance and has been accused by human rights groups of forcibly returning migrants and asylum-seekers on its sea and land borders, a practice it denies, saying its coast guard acts with full respect for human lives and rights.
(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Antonis Pothitos; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Xevi Fontdegloria)
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