14 migrants dead, 26 rescued after collision with Greek coastguard boat

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - ATHENS — A speedboat carrying migrants and asylum seekers collided with a Greek coastguard vessel in the Aegean Sea near the island of Chios late on Tuesday, killing at least 14 people.

Advertisements

The incident occurred around 9 pm local time (19:00 GMT) off the coast of Chios’s Mersinidi area, Greece’s Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA) reported.

Greek authorities said the speedboat was making dangerous manoeuvres and that a pursuit was under way at the time of the collision in the Chios Strait, near the village of Vrontades.

Twenty six people, including 24 migrants and two coastguard officers, were rescued, some of whom were seriously injured. It said it was not immediately clear how many others had been on the speedboat.

The coastguard has not yet clarified the exact circumstances around the collision.

A search and rescue operation was ongoing on Tuesday night, which involved four coastguard vessels, a privately owned boat carrying civilian divers, and a helicopter.

Greek state broadcaster ERT said the injured included seven children, a pregnant woman and two coastguard officers.

Four deaths were initially reported but an update issued at 23:00 local time (21:00 GMT) said ten additional bodies had been recovered, bringing the confirmed death toll to 14.

Footage shared by Greece’s Ta Nea newspaper appeared to show at least one person being brought from a boat docked next to a jetty into a vehicle with blue flashing lights.

An unnamed coastguard official told the Reuters news agency that the collision occurred after the migrant boat “manoeuvred toward” a coastguard vessel that had instructed it to turn back.

Greece has long been a key transit point for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa ‌and Asia trying to reach Europe. — Agencies