So far this year more than 580,000 refugees have reached Greece from Turkey.
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Despite worsening weather at the onset of winter that has made the already hazardous sea voyage even more unsafe, a record 48,000 refugees and migrants arrived last week in Greece, the worldwide Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
Tsipras said, “Our first duty is to save lives and not allow the Aegean Sea to become a cemetery”.
At least three more people died when another boat sunk off the nearby island of Rhodes.
“Germany is well aware that its own demographics mean it needs young people, and a lot of the refugees are young”, said Rosales.
For more than four hours, until long after nightfall, three Spanish lifeguards tried to rescue as numerous people in the water as they could, using only their jetskis in the rough water many kilometers offshore.
Tragedy struck the Aegean again on Sunday when a boat making the risky crossing from the Turkish coast to the Greek island of Samos sank with the loss of at least 11 refugees, six of them children and babies. A few 35 people are still missing.
A search and rescue operation was continuing to find two more migrants missing from the boat.
He also said that the agreement with Croatia, to transport refugees directly to Slovenia, sparing them a walk across the border, is functioning well. We will not put them in jail or try to drown them.
There is no doubt that the rescuers faced severe weather conditions during Wednesday’s disaster, with near-gale-winds.
The boats had been trying to make their way to tiny Greek islands that lie in the sea and enter the European Union from there. The Turkish smuggler driving the boat called his fellow smugglers, and a speedboat came to evacuate him, its occupants firing several times in the air to warn off the panicking people on the boat.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Friday that the drownings were a “humanitarian tragedy” and a “shame” for Europe. We are definitely going to have psychological issues here a few day.
“I feel ashamed as a member of this European leadership, both for the inability of Europe in dealing with this human drama, and for the level of debate at a senior level, where one is passing the buck to the other”, Mr Tsipras told Parliament.
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“These are hypocritical, crocodile tears which are being shed for the dead children on the shores of the Aegean”.
