Eight missing after Greek coastguard vessel hits migrant boat

A woman and three children drowned after their wooden boat collided with a Greek coast guard vessel during a migrant rescue operation north of the Aegean island of Lesbos.

On Wednesday, authorities recovered the bodies of a woman, a young girl and an infant from an overturned dinghy spotted by a helicopter of the European Union border policing agency Frontex. It was still unclear whether he was among the survivors or the missing.

A photographer who witnessed the crash caused the migrant boat to sink within just two or three minutes.

The nationalities of the migrants were not yet known.

Turkish coast guards rescued two people near the Ozdere neigborhood of the district after one of the refugees in the boat, who swam towards the neigborhood, informed locals about the incident.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Europe must cooperate with Turkey in order to tackle the migrant crisis.

The wooden boat was carrying 39 people from Turkey’s coast to Greece, according to initial accounts.

A day after the Greek Foreign Ministry ruled out conducting joint patrols in the Aegean Sea with Turkey, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday called on Athens to reconsider, noting that the refugee crisis is “a European issue, it’s not an issue of Greek-Turkish relations”.

The global Organization for Migration says more than 600,000 migrants have landed on Europe’s shores since January, while more than 3,000 had died or gone missing in the attempt.