Six migrants, including a baby, die off Lesbos
A speedboat carrying migrants rammed a Greek coast guard patrol vessel south of Agrilia. The same day a boat capsized off Samos, leaving 12 dead in the Aegean.
Six migrants died on Monday, October 19, off the Greek island of Lesbos after the speedboat they were travelling in crashed into a Greek coast guard patrol vessel. The same day a small boat capsized off Samos, killing six more people. In one day, 12 people died on the Aegean Sea, one of the busiest routes from the Turkish coast to Europe.
What happened off Lesbos?
The collision took place about 3.5 nautical miles south of Agrilia. According to a coast guard statement reported by the newspaper Kathimerini, it happened during a pursuit: the speedboat was trying to get away and struck the left side of the patrol vessel with its bow. Some of the passengers fell into the sea.
One of the six dead is a baby. Sources differ on the other victims. RTS, citing Kathimerini, reports that four men, a woman and a baby died, while the French agency AFP, as quoted by Euronews, says four women died along with the baby. The nationality of the dead and of the survivors has not been released.
Eight people were rescued. According to RTS they are four men, two women and two children. They were taken to the port of Mitilini and from there to the Mitilini General Hospital, where they received medical care. According to the same source, a 37-year-old Turkish national was arrested among the survivors on suspicion of human smuggling. Port authorities are investigating the circumstances of the collision.
The search and rescue effort involved an offshore rescue vessel, a coastal patrol boat, three coast guard boats, an air force helicopter and a vessel from a private Greek rescue team. The operation was coordinated by the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre.
What happened off Samos the same day?
A small boat capsized off Samos. Six people died, five men and one woman, and 14 were rescued. The coast guard said the survivors include a person believed to be the Iranian organizer of the crossing.
The minister’s statement and earlier cases
Greek Migration Minister Tanos Plevris, who champions a very strict migration policy, praised the coast guard in a statement to the public broadcaster Ertnews. “Smugglers put migrants in great danger,” Plevris said, adding that coast guard members “do everything they can to save lives while protecting our borders.”
This is not the first collision with a coast guard vessel this year. In February, at least 15 migrants died off the island of Chios when their boat collided with a coast guard patrol ship. In September, a boat packed with migrants sank off the island of Gavdos, near Crete: one person died and 25 are listed as missing.
According to the International Organization for Migration, at least 1,209 migrants have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since the start of the year.
Greece is one of five European countries, along with Austria, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, working to set up detention centers in Africa for migrants whose asylum claims have been rejected. The initiative does not have unanimous support in the European Union, and France is among those opposing it. According to the EU Agency for Asylum, the 27 member states received 332,000 applications for international protection in the first half of the year, 17 percent fewer than in the same period of 2025, as countries tighten their migration policies.
