According to Greek coastguards, a boat was in distress at sea off Lesbos, near the coast of neighboring Turkey, early on Thursday.
About 30 people are reported to have been on board. 23 have been rescued and seven – including at least two women and two children – have been confirmed dead.
On the same day, nine migrants died and 25 were rescued when their boat began to sink off the district of Ayvacik in Turkey, reports the governor. The migrants' nationality is unknown, add the Turkish authorities.
Since the beginning of 2025, nearly 9,000 migrants have entered Greece, most of them by sea, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. They are fleeing conflicts, violence, and poverty in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The dangerous journey across the Mediterranean is often made in inadequate rubber boats, not infrequently in bad weather.
At the same time, Greece's conservative government has taken an increasingly tough stance on migration.
If you want to enter Greece illegally without the right to asylum, we will do everything we can to send you back to where you came from, said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently in the Greek parliament.
