Greece: Migrants on sailing boat rescued off mainland

In the early hours of Tuesday (August 6), the Greek coast guard directed a Maltese-flagged cruise ship to pick up a group of migrants on a sailing yacht in distress. News reports said there were between 75 and 77 people on board. The yacht was located by the cruise ship about 207 kilometers off the coast of Pylos in southwestern Greece.

The migrants were taken to the Greek port town of Kalamata, reported Associated Press. There were no reports of anyone missing, the news agency stated.

The rescue happened near the site of one of the Mediterranean’s deadliest migrant shipwrecks. In June 2023, an overcrowded fishing boat that had sailed from Libya sank off Pylos. Only 104 people survived. It is believed the boat could have had more than 700 on board. The majority of the bodies have never been found.

Also read: IOM chief welcomes further protection of migrants in Greece

Chase off Symi

Migrants leaving in boats from Turkey commonly take the route around Greece to Italy. However, on Tuesday neither the nationalities of those on board the yacht, nor their port of departure or destination, had been reported.

A day earlier, on Monday (August 5), the Greek coast guard said it had also been involved in locating 21 migrants and arresting their smuggler after a chase on the Greek island of Symi. In a press release published on August 6, the coast guard said that at noon on Monday, one of its patrol boats had located a speed boat “disembarking people near the bay of Marathoustas, Symi.”

The Greek coast guard tried to get the boat to stop, but a “pursuit ensued with the operator of the speed boat making repeated dangerous maneuvers and attempts to ram the patrol craft,” according to the press release.

Authorities said they fired two warning shots but when the speed boat driver failed to stop they fired two “targeted shots at the machine.” The speedboat then decelerated and overturned, “hitting the right side of the patrol boat, causing the speed boat’s air chamber to rupture and immobilize,” the press release stated.

The boat sank following the incident, according to the coast guard. The driver needed medical treatment and was reportedly transferred to Rhodes, where he remains hospitalized.

Port officials then searched on land for the migrants, and found “21 foreigners who were identified and transferred to the port authority of Symi,” the coast guard said. The migrants told the authorities they had set off from Bozburun in Turkey and had each paid 4,500 euros for their transport to Symi.

Also read: 77 migrants rescued in major Aegean sea operation

Migrants also found on Samos

A similar event occurred off the island of Samos, stated the Greek coast guard in a separate press release. Early on Monday morning the port authority of Samos “was informed of the existence of a suspicious high-speed vessel coming from the Turkish coast and heading towards the southern coast of Samos,” it said.

The coast guard sent a patrol boat to the area. It said that the operator of the boat “did not comply with instructions to stop, and a pursuit ensued resulting in his arrest.”

The crew of the patrol boat then “rounded up 17 foreign occupants” on board the speed boat. They included 12 men and five women. These people were taken to the port of Pythagoreion and then to a closed controlled facility in Samos.

The pilot of the boat was reported to be an 18-year-old foreigner who was “arrested as a trafficker of the rest.” The Samos port authority confiscated the boat and a mobile phone, and is continuing investigations.

Turkey alleges further Greek pushbacks

Turkish newspapers meanwhile reported on Monday that Turkish coast guard crews had rescued a total of 59 migrants from the Aegean, 23 of whom they said had been pushed back by the Greek coast guard. Among the group rescued were at least ten children, reported the government-backed newspaper Daily Sabah.

They said they had found the migrants “drifting on a rubber boat after being pushed back by the Greek coast guard,” in waters off western Izmir province. Another group of 36 people had contacted the Turkish coast guard for help after their boat’s engine failed, added the Daily Sabah.

The Greek authorities repeatedly deny the allegations that they push migrants back and say they always act within international and European human rights conventions.

Also read: EU-funded Greek migrant camp described as ‘dystopian nightmare’

With AP and AFP