At least two people died when a migrant boat capsized off the Greek Aegean island of Lesbos on Wednesday, while 32 others were rescued, according to a new toll released by port police. The coast guard had initially said on Wednesday morning that it had found "two bodies at sea" and 18 people on the island who had managed to disembark after their inflatable boat ran aground on the rocky coast of Agios Georgios, east of Lesbos, from neighbouring Turkey.
On Wednesday afternoon, a group of 14 migrants who had also managed to disembark were spotted by authorities on the island, according to an official at the coast guard press office. The incident took place at 3 a.m. local time (1 GMT) on Wednesday, driven by strong winds of 75-88km/h (9 Beaufort).
Weather
According to the migrants' statements, a total of 36 people were on board the boat. A search is underway on the island for the two people who are still missing. Due to the ban on navigation in Greece on Wednesday due to bad weather, coast guard patrol boats cannot carry out searches at sea.
The island of Lesbos, like the other islands in the eastern Aegean Sea, is one of the gateways for migrants to the European Union. Despite rescue operations for boats in difficulty carried out by the Greek authorities with the help of Frontex (European Border Surveillance Agency), many deadly shipwrecks take place every year.
One of the deadliest took place on 14 June, when at least 82 people died and hundreds disappeared when a dilapidated trawler that had sailed from Libya to Italy off the coast of the southwestern Peloponnese peninsula and was carrying up to 750 people on board, according to NGO reports.