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| Photo Credit: AP. |
KYTHIRA, Greece (AP) — Bodies floated amid splintered wreckage in the wind-tossed waters off a Greek island Thursday as the death toll from the separate sinkings of two migrant boats rose to 22, with many still missing.
The vessels
went down hundreds of miles apart, in one case prompting a dramatic overnight
rescue effort as island residents and firefighters pulled shipwrecked migrants
to safety up steep cliffs.
The
shipwrecks further stoked tension between neighbors Greece and Turkey, who are
locked in a heated dispute over maritime boundaries and migration.
Greek Prime
Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis voiced “deep sorrow for the tragic loss of life,”
and praised rescuers’ “heroic” efforts.
“This is a
time to really cooperate much more substantially in order to avoid these types
of incidents occurring in the future and to completely eradicate the smugglers
who prey upon innocent people” trying to reach Europe in unseaworthy boats,
Mitsotakis added.
The coast
guard on Greece’s eastern island of Lesbos said the bodies of 16 young African
women, a man and a boy were recovered after a dinghy carrying about 40 people
sank. Ten women were rescued, while 12 other migrants were believed to be
missing, coast guard officials said.
The last
body to be recovered, of a man, was found by divers from the European Union’s
Frontex border agency who helped in the search and rescue operation, the coast
guard said.
“The women
who were rescued were in a full state of panic so we are still trying to work
out what happened,” coast guard spokesman Nikos Kokkalas told Greek state
television. “The women were all from African countries, aged 20 upward. ...
There is a search on land as well as at sea, and we hope that survivors made it
to land.”
The second
rescue effort was launched several hundred kilometers (miles) to the southwest,
off the island of Kythira, where a sailboat struck rocks and sank.
The bodies
of at least four migrants were seen amid floating debris from the yacht under
the cliffs. The deaths would be officially recorded when the bodies were
recovered, officials said. They added that 80 people, from Iran, Iraq and
Afghanistan, had been rescued while a search continues for as many as 11 still
believed to be missing.
With winds
in the area reaching 70 kilometers per hour (45 mph) overnight on Kythira,
survivors clinging to ropes were pulled to safety up steep cliffs as others
were buffeted by waves as they waited their turn on tiny areas of rock at the
bottom.
“All the residents here went down to the
harbor to try and help,” Martha Stathaki, a local resident told The Associated
Press.
“We could see the boat smashing against the
rocks and people climbing up those rocks to try and save themselves. It was an
unbelievable sight.”
Kythira is
some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Turkey and on a route often used by
smugglers to bypass Greece and head directly to Italy.
A volatile
dispute is taking place between Greece and Turkey over the safety of migrants
at sea, with Athens accusing its neighbor of failing to stop smugglers active
on its shoreline and even using migrants to apply political pressure on the
European Union.
Most
migrants who reach Greece travel from nearby Turkey, but smugglers have changed
routes — often taking greater risks — in recent months in an effort to avoid
heavily patrolled waters around eastern Greek islands near the Turkish
coastline.
“Once again,
Turkey’s tolerance of gangs of ruthless traffickers has cost human lives,”
Greek Shipping Minister Yannis Plakiotakis said.
“As long as
the Turkish coastguard does not prevent their activities, the traffickers cram
unfortunate people, without safety measures, into boats that cannot withstand
the weather conditions, putting their lives in mortal danger.”
Turkey
denies the allegations and has publicly accused Greece of carrying out reckless
summary deportations, known as pushbacks.
Speaking at
the United Nations General Assembly last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, accused Greece of “turning the Aegean Sea into a graveyard” and held
up photographs of dead migrant children. ___ Follow AP’s coverage of global
migration: https://apnews.com/hub/migration