Collision between Greek Coast Guard vessel, migrant boat kills at least 14

Greece’s Coast Guard says 26 different radical person been rescued from Aegean Sea arsenic search-and-rescue operations continue.

A vessel carrying migrants has collided with a Greek Coast Guard vas successful the Aegean Sea adjacent the land of Chios, sidesplitting astatine slightest 14 people, the Coast Guard says.

The incidental occurred astir 9pm section clip connected Tuesday (19:00 GMT) disconnected the seashore of Chios’s Mersinidi area, Greece’s Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA) reported.

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The Coast Guard said 26 radical were rescued and brought to a infirmary successful Chios, including 24 migrants and 2 Coast Guard officers.

It said it was not instantly wide however galore others had been connected the speedboat.

Seven children and a large pistillate were among the injured, Greek media reported.

A search-and-rescue cognition involving patrol boats, a chopper and divers was nether mode successful the area, AMNA said.

Footage shared by Greece’s Ta Nea paper appeared to amusement astatine slightest 1 idiosyncratic being brought from a vessel docked adjacent to a jetty into a conveyance with bluish flashing lights.

An unnamed Coast Guard authoritative told the Reuters quality bureau that the collision occurred aft the migrant vessel “manoeuvred toward” a Coast Guard vas that had instructed it to crook back.

Greece has agelong been a cardinal transit constituent for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa ‌and Asia trying to scope Europe.

In 2015 and 2016, Greece was connected the frontline of a migration situation arsenic astir 1 cardinal radical landed connected its islands, including Chios, from adjacent Turkiye.

But arrivals person dropped successful caller years arsenic Greece ‌has toughened its migration policies, including tighter borderline controls and oversea ‌patrols.

The state has travel nether scrutiny for its ⁠treatment of migrants and refugees approaching by sea, including 1 shipwreck successful 2023 successful which hundreds of migrants died aft what witnesses said was the Coast Guard’s effort to tow their trawler.

The European Union’s borderline ‌agency said past twelvemonth that it was reviewing 12 cases of imaginable quality rights violations by Greece, including immoderate allegations that radical seeking asylum were pushed backmost from Greece’s ‍frontiers.

Greece has denied carrying retired quality rights violations oregon pushing asylum seekers from its shores.