More than 100 people were rescued from four different small boats in Greek waters over the past few days, including 52 off an uninhabited island. The number of sea arrivals to Greece’s Aegean Islands has been on the rise lately.
Greece’s coast guard on Tuesday (August 8) rescued 52 people crammed onto a sailboat in distress, the unit said in an online statement published the next day.
According to the AP news agency citing Greek officials, the sailboat was anchored off the small, uninhabited island of Falconera, located around 65 kilometers from the country’s mainland and 45 kilometers west of the much larger island of Milos.
The area around the island is known for strong currents and rough seas, AP reports.
The sailboat was initially spotted by a private vessel off Falconera, officials reportedly said. The group of migrants, which the coast guard said consisted of three women, six children and 43 men, were found in “good health.” They were taken to the mainland port of Lavrio southeast of Athens and 116 kilometers north of Falconera.
According to the coast guard, six of its units including a helicopter and a private boat were involved in the rescue operation.
Further rescues elsewhere in Aegean waters
Separately, 19 people were picked up on Tuesday from a disabled dinghy northeast of the island of Samos, according to AP.
Another group of 18 people were rescued from a different dinghy later in the day, also off Samos. The coast guard also said that yet another 14 migrants on a small boat off Lesbos were saved on Monday.
In total, 103 people were rescued in the four operations over a two-day span.
Uptick in dangerous boat crossings
The number of boat crossings in unseaworthy vessels has been on the rise in recent weeks, as migrants continue to be willing to pay traffickers and smugglers from Turkey and North Africa large sums to attempt dangerous sea journeys to EU member states like Greece, Cyprus and Italy.
Some 2,800 migrants arrived irregularly by sea in July — the highest monthly figure since January of 2020, according to UNHCR data.
In total, close to 10,000 irregular arrivals have been registered on the eastern Greek Islands close to Turkey so far this year (through August 6).
In a bid to avoid coast guard patrols, smugglers are increasingly resorting to entering open, international waters in larger boats now, which could result in a higher rate of accidents and shipwrecks.
Greece has been on one of the preferred migration routes into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia for decades. This year, Palestinians, Afghans, Somalis, Syrians and Eritreans are the five most common nationalities of sea arrivals, UNHCR data shows.
Criticism over illegal pushbacks
Over the past months and years, Greece has repeatedly come under heavy criticism over what rights organizations have called a systematic practice of illegally and secretly pushing migrants back to Turkey without allowing them to apply for asylum.
Just last week, reports surfaced about a group of around 50 Syrian migrants, who reportedly were illegally pushed back — despite an intervention attempt by the European Court of Human Rights — after being stuck in and around the Evros border river between Greece and Turkey for three weeks.
The Greek government has repeatedly denied that it engages in such practices.
Meanwhile, a group monitoring migrant rights violations in the Aegean Sea in late July reported a change in tactics by Greek authorities, saying the coast guard had begun rescuing migrants arriving in the islands instead of pushing them back.
Greek coast guard under fire
Greece also came under fire by survivors, NGOs and UN agencies for allegedly failing to intervene in time in June’s migrant boat disaster off its coast.
On June 14, a severely overcrowded fishing boat capsized and sank about 90 kilometers off the southern Greek coast in the Mediterranean Sea. It was the deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea in years. Only 104 people are known to have survived.
Greek officials claim that the passengers refused any help and insisted on proceeding towards Italy, adding that it would have been too dangerous to try and evacuate hundreds of unwilling people off an overcrowded ship.
But initial research and testimonies by survivors challenge this official account given by the Greek coast guard.
Last month, the EU’s watchdog launched an investigation into the potential involvement of the EU’s border agency Frontex in the shipwreck.
Source : Infomigrants
