ATHENS: Greece has blamed Turkey for a migrant boat sinking in the Aegean that claimed the lives of four people including two children, noting that Ankara should prevent smugglers from risking peoples’ lives at sea.
“Four bodies were retrieved without carrying personal lifejackets. The victims were aged four, 11, 25 and 28 years old according to the coroner’s report,” Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi told a news conference on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Mitarachi tweeted four children died after the accident near the island of Chios in which 22 people were rescued.
On Wednesday, he said one to four people were thought to be missing based on the testimony of survivors. Three people were still in hospital, the minister said, adding that the migrants had come from Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea via Turkey.
“The Turkish authorities must do more to prevent exploitation by criminal gangs at source. These journeys should never be allowed to happen,” Mitarachi tweeted on Tuesday.
In a statement, the coast guard said the boat had set out from Turkey amid strong winds, and that none of the occupants had been given a life vest by the smugglers.
Merchant Marine Minister Yiannis Plakiotakis said the smugglers had shown “criminal disregard for human life.”
The coast guard added that in addition to the adverse weather conditions, the boat was overloaded and as a result, its underside came off.
“All those rescued are in good health and were taken to Chios harbor,” it said.
In a statement earlier, the coast guard had said 27 people were thought to be inside the boat, according to the survivors.
Coast Guard patrol boats, a NATO vessel, nearby ships and fishing boats and two helicopters were participating in the search.
According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, more than 2,500 people have crossed the Aegean from neighboring Turkey this year, compared to over 9,700 in 2020.
Over 100 people died or are missing in migrant boat incidents last year, the agency’s data show.
Greece blames Turkey for not taking sufficient action to curb smugglers who send out migrants in unsafe boats and dinghies from its shores.
“This is the reality of the exploitation of migrants by criminal gangs in the Aegean — unscrupulous smugglers putting lives at risk in heavily laden unseaworthy dinghies,” Mitarachi said on Tuesday.
Greece blames Turkey after migrants drown in Aegean
https://arab.news/ywh7n
Greece blames Turkey after migrants drown in Aegean
- Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi: ‘Four bodies were retrieved without carrying personal lifejackets — the victims were aged four, 11, 25 and 28 years old’
- Notis Mitarachi: ‘The Turkish authorities must do more to prevent exploitation by criminal gangs at source — these journeys should never be allowed to happen’
Pope Leo to visit Italy’s Lampedusa island in July
VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV in July will visit the Italian island of Lampedusa, a landing point for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa, the Vatican announced om Thursday.
The US pontiff has previously thanked the people of Lampedusa, which is just 145km off the coast of Tunisia, for the welcome they have given over the years to those who arrived, often on leaky, overcrowded boats.
Leo has also repeatedly spoken out against measures to clamp down on illegal migration.
He called the US administration’s treatment of immigrants “inhuman.”
Leo will visit Lampedusa on July 4, as part of a program of visits within Italy this summer, which includes a trip to Pompeii on May 8, the anniversary of his election, the Vatican said.
On May 23, he will meet pilgrims in the so-called “Land of Fires” in Campania, a southern Italian region blighted by toxic waste dumped by the mafia.
Leo’s predecessor, Francis, chose Lampedusa for his first official visit after becoming pontiff in July 2013.
In a definitive speech of his papacy, Francis denounced what he called “the globalization of indifference,” and the defense of migrants became a cornerstone of his papacy.
Leo became the first US head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics last May following Francis’s death.
In October, Leo said states had a right to protect their borders but a “moral obligation” to provide refuge.
“With the abuse of vulnerable migrants, we are witnessing, not the legitimate exercise of national sovereignty, but rather grave crimes committed or tolerated by the state,” he said, according to a speech published by the Vatican.
“Ever more inhuman measures are being adopted — even celebrated politically —that treat these ‘undesirables’ as if they were garbage and not human beings.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government has taken a tough line on irregular migration, restricting the activities of charity rescue boats and seeking to speed up returns of people who fail to qualify for asylum.
Her ministers last week agreed on a new draft law that would allow the imposition of a “naval blockade” to stop migrant boats from entering Italian waters.
Almost 2,300 migrants have landed on Italy’s shores so far this year, compared to 5,600 in the same period in 2025 and 4,200 in the same period in 2024.
Yet many die trying to make the crossing, with at least 547 lives lost along Mediterranean routes so far this year, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
Leo, who was born in Chicago and spent two decades as a missionary in Peru, has said he loves to travel.
He spent many years on the road when he served two, six-year terms as the superior of his Augustinian religious order, which required him to visit Augustinian communities around the world.
Pope Leo himself has said he hopes to visit his beloved Peru, as well as Argentina and Uruguay, trips that could happen toward the end of the year.
