Greek islanders tipped for Peace Nobel stoic about nomination

For months Greek fisherman Stratis Valamios would steer his boat out to sea, only instead of fish, he pulled out people.

Day after day, rubber boats packed with refugees and migrants would attempt the short but dangerous crossing to Greece from Turkey, even as winter set in and the seas turned rough and winds grew violent.

"It was like a war zone," Valamios, now a co-nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, said of his tiny seaside village of Skala Sikamnias on Lesvos, the island where more than 800,000 people escaping war and conflict in the Middle East and beyond arrived in 2015.

"You had the wounded, the dead," he said matter-of-factly.

"We brought in many babies out here on the concrete, on the tables, and they died in our arms."

No one knows how many people Valamios and other locals saved from drowning, but it is believed to be in the...