Immigration to Greece

A boat carrying an unknown number of migrants from Turkey to Greece floundered on rocks off Samos on Thursday morning, killing four passengers, identified as two children and two women.

This was the second deadly shipwreck to take place off the eastern Aegean island this week, after another boat sank in the area on Monday, causing the death of another six children and two women.  

Greece rescued 27 migrants and recovered the bodies of four dead people after their boat sank close to the island of Kos, the Greek coast guard said on Tuesday night.

Three coast guard ships along with a commercial vessel searched for more people in the area, the agency said.

Greece has recovered the body of a woman and rescued 15 migrants from the sea after their boat capsized off the island of Kos in the eastern Aegean Sea on Friday, its coastguard said.

In a separate incident on Friday, the coastguard rescued 78 migrants from a wooden boat sailing some 23 nautical miles off the tiny island of Gavdos in Greece's south.

One migrant died after smugglers piloting a speedboat from Turkey to an Aegean Sea island forced their passengers into the sea on Tuesday to avoid detection by marine patrols, Greek authorities said.

The remaining 30 migrants on the vessel were unhurt, a coast guard statement said.

Turkish authorities reported on Monday that they had rescued 116 irregular migrants who were allegedly pushed back into Turkish territorial waters by Greek authorities.

The Turkish Coast Guard rescued 112 irregular migrants, including 23 children. off the coast of İzmir province.

A statement from the Coast Guard Command's website said teams were dispatched after receiving information about a group of irregular migrants in rubber boats off Seferihisar and Menderes districts.

The Turkish Coast Guard has rescued 19 irregular migrants whose boats had capsized off the coast of the western province of İzmir, with teams recovering the bodies of seven others, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya has said.

A Greek coastguard vessel came under fire from a boat carrying undocumented migrants in the eastern Aegean, according to reports Friday.

Turkish authorities have apprehended dozens of illegal migrants in the Aegean Sea, including those reportedly pushed back by Greece, officials said on June 23.

Early on June 21, the Coast Guard Command intercepted a rubber boat carrying 16 illegal migrants, including one child, off the coast of Muğla's Bodrum district.

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.