Twelve Migrants, Including an Infant, Drown as Boats Capsize off Lesbos and Samos

Twelve migrants drowned in two separate incidents off the Greek islands of Lesbos and Samos on Monday, after their boats capsized while the Greek coast guard chased them, authorities said, according to Reuters.

Five men and one woman died after a speedboat carrying migrants from Turkey made a sudden manoeuvre and overturned roughly four nautical miles north of Samos, the coast guard said. Fourteen men survived, and a search and rescue operation was still under way, Reuters reported. Authorities arrested one of the survivors, an Iranian national, on suspicion of migrant smuggling.

Collision off Lesbos

Earlier on Monday, four men, one woman and an infant died when their boat collided with a Greek coast guard vessel and overturned off the area of Agrilia in Lesbos. Eight survivors were taken to hospital.

Authorities arrested a 37-year-old Turkish national who was among the eight survivors. They identified him as the suspected smuggler and the operator of the boat, Reuters reported.

Greece's shipping minister, Vassilis Kikilias, said evidence so far indicated the speedboat struck the left side of a coast guard vessel with its bow. He said the exact circumstances were under investigation.

"Our position is non-negotiable: zero tolerance for smugglers," Kikilias said in a post on X. The government blamed migrant smugglers for the deaths.

A route under pressure

Both boats had set out from Turkey, which lies a short distance across the northeastern Aegean Sea from Lesbos and Samos. Greece has for years been a favoured gateway into Europe for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia. It stood at the front line of Europe's migration crisis in 2015 and 2016, when nearly 1 million people landed on its islands, mainly from Turkey, Reuters reported.

Greece has since toughened its stance on migration. Human rights groups have accused Greek authorities of forcibly returning migrants and asylum seekers at its sea and land borders. Greece denies the practice and says its coast guard acts with full respect for human lives and rights.

The search off Samos was still running on Monday, so officials had not ruled out a change in the toll. No names or nationalities for the dead were released in the first reports, beyond the infant who died off Lesbos.

Twenty two people survived the two incidents in total. Eight were taken to hospital after the collision off Lesbos, and fourteen men survived the capsize north of Samos. The two men arrested on suspicion of smuggling came from inside those survivor groups, one from each boat, and both arrests were announced by the Greek authorities on Monday.