Dinghy

Greek authorities on Saturday rescued nearly 60 migrants in inflatable dinghies trying to cross from Turkey to the nearby eastern Aegean Sea islands in two separate incidents, the coast guard said.

In recent weeks Greece has seen a rise in such arrivals, mostly in small unseaworthy boats provided by smugglers.

Greece's coast guard on Tuesday rescued 52 people crammed onto a sailing boat anchored off an uninhabited island far from the country's mainland, authorities said.

Greek authorities rescued 40 migrants from a sinking dinghy in the Aegean Sea on Wednesday and charged two of them with causing a shipwreck and endangering lives for allegedly scuttling the flimsy vessel as a coast guard boat approached.

The Hellenic Coast Guard rescued 13 migrants and arrested their trafficker off the eastern Aegean island of Samos on Tuesday morning.

According to the Coast Guard, a rescue boat spotted and immobilized an inflatable dinghy in the sea area of Prasou, northeast of Samos.

The Greek Coast Guard rescued 53 migrants from an inflatable boat located off the coast of Lesvos in the eastern Aegean on Friday.

The Coast Guard said six of the people on the boat removed the engine and made holes in the dinghy when they saw the patrol vessel approaching.

Two men who went missing on Wednesday during a boat trip in northeastern Crete were found in the sea area off the coast of Hersonissos on Thursday morning, the Coast Guard said.

Coast guard officers questioned locals around the seaside Evia town of Eretria on Wednesday, seeking corroboration for the testimony of a witness questioned in connection with the boating death last Sunday of former PASOK MP Sifis Valirakis.

Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis on Friday sent a letter to European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson and UNHCR Representative in Greece Philippe Leclerc on a migrant boat wreck that claimed the lives of two women on Thursday.

A search and rescue operation has been launched in the eastern Aegean Sea after a dinghy carrying migrants either sank or overturned off the Greek island of Lesvos, the Greek coast guard said Wednesday.

Greek authorities have received information that at least two decommissioned ships carrying large numbers of migrants, similar to a small tanker that ran aground off a Cycladic island last week, may be setting sail from Turkey to Greece in the coming days.