Greek authorities were alerted by a phone call to emergency services by one of the boat’s passengers, who said there were about 53 people on board and that the vessel was experiencing mechanical problems.
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Greece’s coast guard says it has rescued 59 migrants in an inflatable dinghy in rough weather in the Aegean Sea. The coast guard said the search was being conducted northwest of the island of Samos and north of the island of Ikaria. They were among a total of 147 people who arrived on three Greek islands in the 24 hours between Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning.
Rights group Amnesty International has said it has “credible evidence” of the abuse and torture of people detained in sweeping post-coup arrests – something Ankara has denied. The vast majority of migrants reach Greece’s eastern Aegean islands a few miles from the Turkish coast.
The measure has left more than 57,600 people stranded in Greece.
The numbers of refugees arriving on Greece’s islands, mostly from Turkey, had dropped to near zero since May, after a deal was signed with Turkey aimed at keeping refugees from making the crossing to Europe.
It underlines growing fears that Ankara is failing in its agreement to stem the tide of illegal migration passing into European Union countries through its borders.
Over 10,000 migrants are now squeezed into camps on Lesbos, Chios and Samos, most of whom have fled from conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, the BBC reports. Save The Children warned that refugee women and children were living in “demoralising and unsafe conditions”. News stories displayed here appear in our category for General and are licensed via a specific agreement between LongIsland.com and The Associated Press, the world’s oldest and largest news organization. For the protection of AP and its licensors, content may not be copied, altered or redistributed in any form.
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Arrivals more than doubled in the first 14 days of August compared with the same period of July, although the numbers remain well below the level seen past year.
