Child drowns as migrant ship sinks near Greece
A child was among three people to die when a boat carrying scores of migrants sank near the Greek island of Rhodes yesterday.
The sailing boat carrying more than 90 migrants ran aground on rocks off the Aegean island on a crossing from Turkey, a police spokesman told AFP.
Most of the survivors had to be pulled from the sea, and police fear the death toll could grow as they try to determine how many people were on board.
Greek authorities said they rescued 93 migrants, 30 of whom were subsequently hospitalised.
The boat crash happened a stone's throw from shore, so was caught on film and video by witnesses.
One harrowing clip shows about a dozen migrants, some wearing life jackets, clinging to a chunk of boat debris before being hauled on to land.
There has been a surge in migrants trying to reach Greece's Aegean islands from the Turkish coast in the last 10 days.
More than 700 migrants arrived on the island of Lesbos last week.
Greece's radical left government, which has taken a less hardline attitude to migrants than its predecessors, appealed to local authorities last week to help accommodate the latest wave of refugees.
Greece lacks the means and the infrastructure to adequately cope with the growing number of migrants landing on its shores and crossing its borders, most of them en route to northern Europe.
Survivors sit on the deck of an Italian ship after more than 900 migrants died in a shipwreck last week. Photo: Reuters
The tragedy comes just days after another vessel, carrying more than 900 migrants from Libya capsized near Sicily.
Of the nearly 1000 people on the vessel, only about 27 survived the disaster. It is believed to be one of, if not the, biggest migrant disaster in history.
News break – April 21
