Officials in Greece stated that they were looking for hundreds of migrants who disappeared after their boat capsized off Evia Island on Tuesday (1 November).
Nikos Kokkalas spoke for the Greek coast guard and said that 10 men were saved from the boat that had sunk near the southern tip of Evia. The boat was sailing from Turkey. The boat was carrying 68 passengers, according to survivors.
The rescue operation is carried out under gale force winds and involves a coast guard vessel, helicopter, and two boats nearby.
This was the second incident involving migrants on a boat this week. Four migrants were saved by Samos, Turkey, after their inflatable dinghy flipped.
Greece was the center of a European migration crisis in 2015. Nearly one million refugees fled war and poverty in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to reach Greece via boats from Turkey.
The number of migrants has decreased since 2016, when Turkey and the European Union signed a deal to stop the flow. The Greek authorities claim they have witnessed an increase in migrants trying to enter Greece via its islands and land borders with Turkey.
Ioannis Plakiotakis, the Greek shipping minister, stated Tuesday that Turkey is “still allowing rings of ruthless traffickers to send our fellow human beings to their deaths”.
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