Seven children among 13 killed as migrant boat sinks off Greek island

Greek authorities say at least 10 people have drowned and two more are missing after a boat carrying about 25 migrants sank in the eastern Aegean Sea.

Another 13 people were rescued and two more are feared missing, the agency said.

The number of migrants who have entered Europe by sea and land this year has passed 1 million, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Tuesday (December 22). Greece was by far probably the most very popular point of entry, with greater than 820,000 migrants arriving there.

In the Aegean, 11 people died after their boat went down, apparently en route from Kusadasi in Turkey to the Greek island of Samos.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR is planning for arrivals to continue at a similar rate in 2016 but the IOM said it was impossible to forecast future numbers.

This year’s total of migrant/refugee deaths now stands at 3,692 – over 400 more than in 2014 – plus at least 30 more deaths reported by African migrants seeking to enter Europe through Spain’s Canary Islands.

The UNHCR says about 80 percent of the refugees and migrants have crossed the Aegean from Turkey to Greece, which does not have the capacity to accommodate them.

The IOM said more than 800,000 people crossed into Greece from Turkey, including more than 455,000 from Syria and over 186,000 from Afghanistan.

“The European migration flow is nevertheless far more manageable than in the Middle East, where roughly 2.2 million Syrian refugees live in Turkey alone”, the Guardian reported.

The new figures, jointly released by the UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration, listed migrant arrivals in six European countries since January 1, with the vast majority 821,008 landing in Greece. Three-year-old Aylan died in September after his family, sheltering in Turkey from the war in Syria, decided to make a desperate bid to reach Greece in a flimsy inflatable boat.

Though the European reaction was initially chaotic, with border crossings for people moving northwards from Greece proving to be particularly hard, the refugee agency indicated that a more coordinated response is beginning to take shape.

““Syria, as we all know, is an absolutely catastrophic conflict, which is producing levels of human suffering and displacement really unparalleled anywhere.” said Edwards. “We just hope people are treated with dignity”.