At least eight people have drowned after a speedboat carrying migrants tried to evade a coastguard patrol in the Aegean Sea, Greece’s coastguard said.
The boat capsized after its driver “lost control” while trying to evade a Greek patrol vessel, the coastguard said. According to Greek media reports, the boat was travelling at high speed and collided with the side of a Greek coastguard vessel as it tried to escape.
The coastguard said 18 people have so far been rescued from the sea, many of them injured.
The incident happened on Friday near the island of Rhodes, opposite the Turkish coast, on a route often used by migrant smugglers. A helicopter and coastguard ships are still searching for survivors.
Thousands of migrants die every year in the sea as they try to reach the shores of Europe in search of a better life. Hundreds of them remain unidentified and go to unmarked graves.
According to the International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants Project, the annual number of migrant deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean jumped from 2,048 victims in 2021 to 2,411 in 2022 and to 3,041 by the end of 2023.
IOM is working with other UN agencies and humanitarian partners on recommendations to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants along dangerous routes.
