Seven migrants drown after boat overturns off Lesvos

Seven migrants, including two children, drowned off Lesvos yesterday when their boat capsized off the island’s main port while coast guard officers rescued another 57 people from the sea.

The migrants, who were reportedly African, fell into the sea when the plastic dinghy in which they had traveled from neighboring Turkey overturned at around 7 a.m. despite the good weather conditions.

A vessel belonging to the European Union’s border monitoring agency Frontex spotted the migrants and alerted the coast guard, which dispatched two vessels to the spot.

Yesterday’s were the first deaths reported in months even though the influx from Turkey has not stopped. Last year, 32,494 migrants reached the islands from Turkey, with 174 people dying in the process. This year, 10,621 migrants had reached the islands by June 9. Last week 868 people arrived on the islands.