On Wednesday (September 20), 93 migrants were safely evacuated from a yacht in distress off the southwestern Greek coast, news agency AP reported on the same day citing statements from authorities.

In one of the statements, the coast guard reportedly said the yacht carried 93 people and was located about 74 kilometers west of the small town of Pylos on the Penepolese peninsula. There were no reports of missing passengers.

According to AP, six of the passengers were picked up by another yacht in the area and taken to Pylos, where one woman was transferred to a hospital in the southern city of Kalamata some 40 kilometers to the east.

Another 87 people were picked up by two passing tankers and transported to Kalamata escorted by coast guard patrol vessels, AP reported citing the authorities.

Separately, AP reported that a total of 115 migrants were rescued from three small boats off the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos on Wednesday, also citing information from the Greek coast guard. Another 24 people were reportedly rescued off the island of Samos.

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Series of shipwrecks

This week's incidents were the latest in a long series of often deadly shipwrecks and other incidents involving migrants in Greek waters in the eastern Mediterranean Sea:

• Earlier this month, at least 43 migrants were rescued from a small boat southeast of Lesbos after it ran into difficulty, with one person reportedly remaining unaccounted for.
• At the beginning of September, a group of 15 migrants, one of whom had died, were found on a tiny uninhabited island in the eastern Aegean Sea.
• In late August, more than 180 migrants were rescued in waters off western Greece and in the Aegean Sea
• Also in late August, four people died and 18 were rescued after a boat carrying migrants sank northeast off Lesbos.
• In early August, more than 100 people were rescued from four different small boats in Greek waters over the course of a few days, including 52 off an uninhabited island.
• On June 14, a severely overcrowded fishing boat capsized and sank about 90 kilometers off the southern Greek coast in the Mediterranean Sea. It was the deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea in years. Only 104 people are known to have survived. 

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Shipwreck survivors file lawsuit

According to news agency AP, 40 survivors of the June migrant boat disaster, which occurred not far from this week's incident, last week filed a lawsuit in Greece against "all parties responsible". The group claims that Greek authorities failed to rescue the passengers before the vessel capsized and sank.

The Greek government and responsible authorities had previously come under fire by survivors, NGOs and UN agencies for allegedly failing to intervene in time in the disaster.

Greek officials claim that the passengers refused any help and insisted on proceeding towards Italy, adding that it would have been too dangerous to try and evacuate hundreds of unwilling people off an overcrowded ship.

But research and testimonies by survivors challenge this official account given by the Greek coast guard.

In July, the EU's watchdog launched an investigation into the potential involvement of the EU's border agency Frontex in the shipwreck.

Uptick in dangerous boat crossings

The number of attempted crossings in the eastern Mediterranean Sea in unseaworthy vessels has been on the rise in recent weeks, as migrants continue to be willing to pay smugglers from Turkey and North Africa large sums to attempt dangerous sea journeys to EU member states like Greece, Cyprus and Italy.

While many migrants use small dinghies to head from Turkey to Greek islands near the Turkish coast, smugglers are increasingly using larger sailing boats, yachts or fishing vessels to make the longer crossing from either Turkey or north Africa to Italy, bypassing Greece in a bid to avoid coast guard patrols. This could result in a higher rate of accidents and shipwrecks.

Some 6,400 migrants have arrived irregularly so far by sea in the first 17 days of September -- already the highest monthly figure since January of 2020, according to UNHCR data. Last month, some 5,800 migrants arrived by sea, up from around 2,700 in July.

In total, more than 21,000 irregular arrivals have been registered on the eastern Greek Islands in the Aegean Sea close to Turkey so far this year. Information was last updated on September 17.

Greece has been on one of the preferred migration routes into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia for decades. This year, Palestinians, Afghans, Somalis, Syrians and Eritreans are the five most common nationalities of sea arrivals, UNHCR data shows.

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with AP