Twelve migrants died Monday while attempting to cross the Aegean Sea, including six whose boat collided with a police patrol vessel, citing the Greek coast guard.
A baby and four women were among the six people killed in the collision off the island of Lesbos, a coast guard official told Agence France-Presse. Eight people were rescued.
The official said “a speed boat carrying migrants collided with the port side of a police patrol vessel.”
In a separate incident off the island of Samos, five men and a woman died when a small boat capsized, the coast guard said. Fourteen people were rescued, including a suspected Iranian organizer of the crossing.
The coast guard did not disclose the nationalities of the other people rescued or those who died.
The Aegean is a frequently used route for migrants leaving Turkey in hopes of reaching Europe, with crossings repeatedly resulting in deaths.
At least 15 migrants died in February off the Greek island of Chios when their boat collided with a coast guard patrol vessel. In September, one person died and 25 went missing after a migrant boat sank off Gavdos, near Crete.
“Smugglers are putting migrants in grave danger,” Migration Minister Thanos Plevris, who supports strict migration policies, told public broadcaster ERTnews.
Praising the coast guard, he said: “They are doing everything they can to save lives whilst at the same time protecting our borders.”
Greece is working with Austria, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands to establish detention centers in Africa where migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected could be sent.
The initiative does not have unanimous support within the European Union, with France among those opposed.
According to the EU Agency for Asylum, the bloc’s 27 member states received 332,000 applications for international protection in the first half of 2026, down 17 percent from the same period in 2025, as countries tightened their migration policies.
© Agence France-Presse
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