Illegal immigration to Italy

A 20-year-old Sudanese national has been arrested after authorities said survivors of the deadly shipwreck off Samos identified him as their smuggler.

Eight people, including two women and six children, died when a small boat carrying an unspecified number of migrants sank off the coast of the island. A search operation has continued for a second day, involving vessels and divers.

Coast guard have launched a search and rescue operation northwest of Samos after a boat carrying migrants sank in the area.

ERT reports that 20 people have been rescued so far, while two more people are believed to have been on board the vessel.

Three boats and a helicopter are involved in the rescue operation.

A total of 296 migrants and refugees arrived on the island of Lampedusa last night.

Meanwhile, during the previous day, 487 people arrived on this small island south of Sicily.

According to the Coast Guard, the first incident took place southeast of Kos when a boat carrying 16 migrants capsized. Sadly, a woman was recovered dead, while the remaining 15 passengers were rescued and transported by a Coast Guard vessel to the island’s port.

An alleged smuggler who transported migrants in an inflatable boat that sank off the coast of Samos on Monday has been identified, arrested and will be brought before a prosecutor on Tuesday.

Four migrants, a young girl and three women, lost their lives in the shipwreck, while it is believed that one more migrant is missing.

At least four migrants died when their boat sank on Monday off the Greek island of Samos, the Greek Coast Guard said.

At least 30 migrants were believed to be initially on board the vessel that foundered off the rocky shores of Agios Isidoros in the northwestern part of the Aegean island, according to coast guard officials.

Three bodies have been recovered near the site of a migrant shipwreck between Italy and Greece from which more than 60 people were reported missing, a spokesperson for the Italian coast guard said on Tuesday.

Demonstrators were due to rally in Athens on Friday to mark the anniversary of a shipwreck that killed hundreds of migrants off Greece and demand answers about the causes of the disaster and the fate of relatives.

At least four people have been hospitalized after Cypriot police rescued 60 Syrian migrants found aboard a rickety wooden boat some 55 kilometers (34 miles) off the island nation's southeastern tip, authorities said Wednesday.

They have been at sea for six days. 

Greece's Coast Guard rescued 22 migrants (12 men, four women, three boys and a girl) from a sailboat that was sailing off the coast of Rhodes, in the eastern Aegean, late on Sunday, authorities said.