Greece’s prime minister has lashed out against European “ineptness” in handling the migration crisis after 22 people drowned in two shipwrecks on Friday.
The merchant marine ministry said 19 people were killed and 138 rescued near the eastern Aegean Sea island of Kalymnos, in one of the worst accidents in Greek waters since the mass migrant flows started after the outbreak of war in Syria.
At least three more people died when another migrant boat sank off the nearby island of Rhodes, and three more were missing. On the islet of Agathonissi, a fisherman recovered the body of a boy missing from yet another accident on Wednesday.
Nearly 600 people have been rescued by the coastguard in the past 24 hours, while thousands more have made it safely to the islands.
Greece’s
prime minister has lashed out against European “ineptness” in handling the
migration crisis after 22 people drowned in two shipwrecks on Friday.
The
merchant marine ministry said 19 people were killed and 138 rescued near the
eastern Aegean Sea island of Kalymnos, in one of the worst accidents in Greek
waters since the mass migrant flows started after the outbreak of war in Syria.
At
least three more people died when another migrant boat sank off the nearby
island of Rhodes, and three more were missing. On the islet of Agathonissi, a
fisherman recovered the body of a boy missing from yet another accident on
Wednesday.
Nearly
600 people have been rescued by the coastguard in the past 24 hours, while
thousands more have made it safely to the islands. Nearly 600 people have been
rescued by the coastguard in the past 24 hours, while thousands more have made
it safely to the islands.
The
death toll in the Aegean over the past three days has now reached nearly 50
mostly children while in Spain rescuers found the bodies of four migrants and
are searching for 35 people missing from a boat that ran into trouble trying to
reach Spain from Morocco.
The
Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, accused Europe of
an “inability to defend its (humanitarian) values” by providing a safe
alternative to the dangerous sea journeys.
“I want to express ... my endless grief at the dozens of
deaths and the human tragedy playing out in our seas,” he told parliament. “The
waves of the Aegean are not just washing up dead refugees, dead children, but
(also) the very civilisation of Europe.”
Tsipras accused western countries of shedding “crocodile
tears” over children dying in the Aegean but doing little for those who make it
across.
The
Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, accused Europe of
an “inability to defend its (humanitarian) values” by providing a safe
alternative to the dangerous sea journeys.
“I want to express ... my endless grief at the dozens of
deaths and the human tragedy playing out in our seas,” he told parliament. “The
waves of the Aegean are not just washing up dead refugees, dead children, but
(also) the very civilisation of Europe.”
Tsipras accused western countries of shedding “crocodile
tears” over children dying in the Aegean but doing little for those who make it
across.
“What
about the tens of thousands of living children, who are cramming the roads of
migration?” he said.
Tsipras blamed the migrant flows on western military
interventions in the Middle East, which he said furthered geopolitical
interests rather than democracy.
“And now, those who sowed winds are reaping whirlwinds,
but these mainly afflict reception countries,” he added.
“I feel ashamed of Europe’s inability to effectively
address this human drama, and of the level of debate ... where everyone tries
to shift responsibility to someone else,” Tsipras said.
Four coastguard patrol vessels, a helicopter and three
fishing boats helped rescue the survivors off Kalymnos, and nobody was listed
as missing, the merchant marine ministry said. The accident occurred shortly
before midnight on Thursday, when the wooden boat in which the migrants had
left from Turkey took on water and sank in moderately strong winds.
Meanwhile, authorities on Friday raised to 16 the number of
deathsfrom another migrant ship disaster off the island of Lesbos on Wednesday.They said 274 people have been rescued in total, while
one more person remains listed as missing.
In
Spain, the Marine Rescue service said 15 migrants were found alive on the boat
on Thursday in the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Spanish port of Malaga, and
four bodies were recovered. Some 35 people are still missing.
Greek is
the main point of entry for people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East
and Africa, after an alternative sea route from Libya to Italy became too
dangerous. Well over half a million mainly Syrians and Afghans have arrived so
far this year from the nearby Turkish coast, as European governments weigh taking
tougher measures to try to limit the number of arrivals in Europe.
The influx has overwhelmed authorities in Greece, which
is struggling through its worst financial crisis in decades.
Tsipras’ left-led government has appealed for more
assistance from its EU partners. It argues that the migrants should be
registered in camps in Turkey from which they could be directly flown to host
countries under the EU’s relocation programme, in order to spare them the
perilous sea voyage.
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