Farmakonisi

A boat carrying six migrants overturned northeast of Farmakonisi island in the eastern Aegean on Thursday.

The Greek coast guard is conducting a search and rescue operation, while officers have already saved two men and a 12-year-old girl.

Three children and two women were found dead, while one man is still missing, following the two latest accidents recorded at the islands of Farmakonissi and Kastellorizo.

Twenty-six migrants were feared missing early on Sept.20 after a dinghy carrying them sank off the Greek island of Lesbos, the coastguard said. 

Their nationalities were not immediately known. A search and rescue operation was under way and 20 other people were pulled from the water, a coastguard spokeswoman said. 

Three people drowned when a boat carrying some 100 migrants capsized off theisland of Farmakonisi in the south Aegean. 68 people were rescued on Sunday while 29 managed to swim to a beach on the island.

Greek coastguards recovered three bodies, including a child.

At least 28 people drowned in another migrant tragedy off Greece on Sunday, as Athens angrily defended its handling of the mounting refugee crisis in Europe. 

The Hellenic National Defence General Staff (GEETHA), Sunday, denied reports that a Turkish swimmer had raised his country’s flag on the isle of Farmakonisi, approximately 5km off the coast of Turkey.

A sailboat carrying migrants sank in in the Aegean sea between Turkey and Greece on July 7 and at least 17 people were missing, Greek authorities said. 

Greece's maritime ministry said Greek and Turkish rescue efforts had saved 16 of the between 33 and 37 migrants believed to be on board when the boat went down between the Greek islands of Farmakonisi and Agathonisi. 

Coast guard officials intercepted more than 400 undocumented immigrants on several islands in the eastern Aegean within 24 hours, officials said on Wednesday as authorities on Lesvos appealed to the central government for support as the relentless flow of arrival fuels tensions and overwhelms local services and infrastructure.

Coast guard officers on Friday rescued and subsequently arrested 85 irregular migrants in the eastern Aegean Sea.

A group of 26 migrants was located off the Dodecanese island of Agathonisi, while another 28 were located on the northeastern coast of another Dodecanese island, Farmakonisi.

A criminal court on Rhodes has handed a 145-year prison sentence to a 21-year-old Syrian national after deeming him responsible for the death of 11 immigrants during a coast guard rescue operation off the eastern Aegean islet of Farmakonisi in January last year.

The court also fined the 21-year-old 570,000 euros after deeming that he had captained the vessel.