Five people, including four children, died and several others were rescued on Monday in two separate incidents involving migrant boats heading to Greek islands from nearby Turkish shores, according to media reports.
The Associated Press quoted coast guards as saying that four people died and 18 others were rescued after a boat carrying migrants apparently sank northeast of the Greek island of Lesbos, which is near the Turkish coast.
Government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said the children included an 8-year-old boy and three girls aged 14, 8 and 11 months.
Greece’s minister for merchant marine, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, said the coast guard carried out the rescue inside Turkish waters.
Coast guard spokesperson Nikos Alexiou said the Turkish coast guard did not conduct a rescue operation, so a Greek patrol boat recovered the passengers.
The source did not provide details as to which countries the dead migrants belonged.
In similar incidents Afghan migrants had lost their lives in the past.
kk/ma
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