Greek search and rescue authorities had found no trace on Tuesday of a missing child who fell from a migrant boat near the island of Samos. An NGO said several other children may be missing in the same region.
Greek officials confirmed on Monday, November 11, that a group of 46 people, nearly half of them children, had been traveling in a small boat which ran aground several days earlier on a rocky shore off the island of Samos in the eastern Aegean Sea.
The coast guard said in a statement that the survivors had been found on the island on Sunday by officers of Frontex, the European border agency.
A woman in the group had alerted authorities that her child had fallen into the water and disappeared as the inflatable dinghy hit the rocks, the AP news agency reported.
Aegean Boat Report (ABR), a Norwegian NGO, said it had been alerted to the presence of what may have been the same group in the area of Galazio on Samos, on Sunday morning. The group appealed for urgent help and said a number of children had possibly ended up in the sea.
"We are in Samos in the jungle and we lost three children in the ocean please help us," said a message from the group of migrants posted on Instagram by ABR. The group added that the circumstances surrounding the incident were unclear.
Meanwhile divers and coast guard patrol vessels searched the area on Sunday and Monday but had found no trace of the child – reportedly a boy – as of Tuesday morning.
No information has been made available about the nationalities of the people on the boat. The vast majority of migrants reaching Samos and nearby islands from Turkey’s western coast are Syrians, followed by Afghans. Around a third are children.
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Survivors taken to closed reception centers
Despite Greek and Turkish patrols aimed at deterring migrants from attempting the crossing, well over 28,000 people have reached Greece by sea so far this year. In that time, the deaths of 92 migrants, including 15 children, have been recorded on the eastern Mediterranean Route, according to the UN migration agency’s Missing Migrants project. Most are believed to have drowned.
Migrants who are apprehended or rescued at sea by the Greek coast guard are taken to asylum seeker reception and pre-removal facilities known as Closed Contolled Access Centers. The CCACs – funded by the European Union – replaced the notorious former 'hotspots' but have been criticized by human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
Figures from the UN refugee agency showed that on November 3, a total of about 11,500 migrants and asylum seekers were being held in the centers on the Aegean Islands (Lesbos, Samos and Leros) and the Dodecanese Islands (Kos and Chios).
On Monday, the coast guard said a further 40 migrants, including nine children, were taken to the CCAC on Chios after being found on an islet.
With AP