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Helpers pull refugees out of the water on ropes on the island of Kythira
Photo: Ippolytos Prekas/AP
At least 15 people died in Greek waters in the night from Wednesday to Thursday in two accidents involving refugee boats.
Dozens more are missing, the Greek authorities announced on Thursday.
On the one hand, there was a sunken rubber boat near the island of Lesbos, in which about 40 people were.
15 of them were found dead, five others were rescued, and three were found on a rock near the scene of the accident.
About 20 people are missing.
»Hard to believe sight«
A second accident happened on Wednesday evening several hundred kilometers to the west, near the island of Kythira.
There, a sailing boat with about 100 refugees and migrants hit rocks and sank.
According to a spokeswoman for the Greek Coast Guard, rescued migrants reported that 95 other people were on the boat.
"The boat went down and they all ended up in the water," she said.
The survivors had been able to save themselves on the shore near a port on the island.
At the time of the accident, strong winds of more than 100 kilometers per hour were blowing in the area.
“We could see the boat hitting the rocks and people climbing onto the rocks to save themselves.
It was an incredible sight," a local resident told the AP.
Rescue workers from the fire brigade were on duty, as well as helicopters.
Divers are expected to arrive on Thursday to search for the missing.
A school is to be cleared as the first shelter for the rescued, local officials said.
There was initially no information on the nationality of the refugees.
Most refugees and migrants reaching Greece come from neighboring Turkey.
In recent months, tugboats have changed routes to avoid heavily patrolled waters in the Aegean near the Turkish coast.
Refugees are increasingly trying to land in southern Greece.
For example, the island of Kythira, where one of the two most recent accidents occurred, is about 400 kilometers west of Turkey and on a route that has recently been used more frequently by smugglers.
In August, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that more than 1,100 people had been killed or missing on the flight route across the Mediterranean since the beginning of the year, including more than 900 in the central Mediterranean.
The route from North Africa to Europe is considered the most dangerous migration route in the world.
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