Migrants search for shelter as more arrive on Greek island of Kos

The island has several thousand migrants camping out and staying in hotels, but tempers have flared as the numbers have swelled, worsening conditions and lengthening the wait for permission to leave. This week, Greek police struggled to keep order on the island of Kos with new refugees arriving daily by rubber dinghies from Turkey, a mere 4 kilometers away. At its closest point, Kos is only 2.5 miles from Turkey.

“It was about to sink”.

“I wanted another life”, he said.

The migrants abandoned their effort on this occasion due to a malfu…

Allatuain said he had led a comfortable life in Aleppo, earning €2,000 a month before Syria’s war began in 2011. He said he feared for their safety making the crossing.

The first migrants were allowed to board the Eleftherios Venizelos early this morning, after a delay of more than a day in preparing the ship. “It is risky even for four people (in such a small boat) – for 15 people, it is 100 percent unsafe”. There, in temperatures hovering around 35 degrees Celsius (95F), they lie on dirty matrasses, rugs or flattened cardboard boxes spread out on a baking hot ground littered with cigarette butts and the husks of sunflower seeds.

For many refugees, Greece is seen as a stepping-stone to Western Europe.

Meanwhile, at least 40 migrants died in the hold of a smuggler’s boat north of Libya.

“The Aegean is a lot easier”. “The Greek authorities need to urgently designate a single body to coordinate response and set up an adequate humanitarian assistance mechanism”, said Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCR’s Director of the Bureau for Europe. It’s still unclear when the ship will sail for Piraeus, or whether it will be used as temporary accommodation until the migrants find other means to travel. Massimo Tozzi, speaking from the navy ship Cigala Fulgosi while the rescue was still ongoing.

The deaths are not deterring migrants, many of whom have likely seen plenty of fatalities in conflicts in nations like Syria and Afghanistan. Greece alone, it said, had reported 134,988 arrivals from Turkey this year.

About a quarter of a million people fleeing war and poverty have crossed into the European Union by sea so far this year, more than half of them to Greece.

Julia Kourafa, a doctor with MSF, said the agency was doing its best to help but lacked the resources to feed so many people.

They are thought to have suffocated after inhaling fumes from fuel after the vessel took on water.

Women and children look on, some of the younger ones crying in confusion. “This boat is filled by water please come back!”

But other times it is poorly organized chaos.

To get to Europe, they depend on a vast illegal migrant smuggling operation that has grown over the past year as the Syrian civil war grinds on.

Then they have tides, currents and Turkish coast guard patrols to contend with before they reach Kos, where they often wade ashore among tourists lying in the Sunday.