Tragic sinkings claim at least 12, mostly kids
LESBOS, Greece — Dead migrants float belly-up, stripped of their clothing by churning seas. On shore, wailing women search for loved ones among the shivering, wide-eyed survivors. A rescuer tries to revive a toddler who lies unconscious in her sodden striped sweater.
The scenes bring home a sobering reality: While the flow of migrants into Europe tends to abate as winter nears and the journey becomes more dangerous, this year it has only risen as thousands of people brave death in raging seas and freezing temperatures.
On the beaches of Lesbos, children who looked as young as 4 appeared to be in shock as rescuers wrapped them with blankets to protect against the cold. They were among 242 people rescued from a boat that sank overnight in rough seas off the Greek island’s north coast. Eight people drowned and 33 remained missing. Authorities found the body of one more drowned migrant believed to be from that shipwreck late Thursday.
In all, five separate incidents in the eastern Aegean Sea on Wednesday left at least 12 people dead, most of them children.
Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II is entering a perilous and uncharted phase, as the usual pattern of migrant season ending by autumn is overturned by intensifying fighting in Syria and overcrowding in refugee centers in Turkey and Lebanon. Asylum applications in the European Union are expected to exceed 1 million this year, higher that the peak of 700,000 recorded in the early 1990s, when wars tore Yugoslavia apart.
Lesbos has borne the brunt of on the nearby Turkish the refugee crisis in Greece, coast would have been aware of with more than 300,000 people the risk. reaching the island this year on “Crossing in those conditions small boats from Turkey, police would be very tough,” he said. say. After the latest tragedy, “They are criminals. They took paramedics and volunteers their money, put them on boats, scrambled on the seafront to and sent them to their death.” resuscitate infants, tearing off Greek officials called on the their soaked clothes, as survivors European Union to speed up were carried or staggered financial aid to Turkey to prevent onto land and were wrapped in more fatal accidents. emergency foil blankets. Eighteen “We can’t have a situation children were hospitalized, continuing with dead children three of them in serious condition, in the sea every day,” Giorgos local officials said. Pallis, a member of Parliament
Local fisherman Manolis representing Lesbos, told staterun Galanakis said the boat sank in radio. “Thousands are coming gale-force winds, and smugglers every day, escaping war. We have handled the situation with dignity, but the truth is that we can’t even meet their basic needs.”
As Lesbos runs out of burial space for dead migrants, the outspoken mayor has called on the government to dismantle a border fence at the frontier with Turkey to open a land bridge, to reduce sea crossings and relieve the island’s burden.
Many of Lesbos’ beaches are strewn with discarded orange life vests. In the main town of Mytilene, a small tent city has sprung up next to the port, where children play with stray dogs and parents hang washing on fences.
Judith Sunderland of Human Rights Watch said there is an urgent need to boost Greece’s search-and-rescue capacity with more vessels from Frontex, the EU’s border-protection agency.
“The Greek Coast Guard is severely under-resourced. The EU has to get the rescue boats in the water right now,” Sutherland said. “Leaders have pledged to increase the Frontex presence in the Aegean. It’s shocking that so many people had to die before we heard that pledge, and there’s no more time for delays.”