North Aegean

The Economy and Development Ministry has announced funding to the tune of 3 million euros for islands in the southeast and northern Aegean that receive migrant and refugee inflows.

The money, drawn from national and European funds, will be used to cover waste management needs, which have increased drastically due to the increased arrivals of migrants and refugees.

The Greek coast guard on Sunday rescued 49 migrants on a rubber dinghy off the eastern Aegean island of Samos.

All migrants were safely transferred to the port of Karlovasi on Samos.

Their nationality was not immediately known.

A 5-year-old refugee boy died on Friday after he was run over by a car on the road linking Mytilene, the capital of the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos, to the town of Mantamado.

The accident occurred outside the refugee camp at Kara Tepe, where the child was staying with his nine-member family.

A livestock farmer on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos was released on Thursday pending trial on charges of illegal arms possession after opening fire on a group of migrants he claims were trying to steal his sheep on Wednesday.

The director of the main hospital on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos has ordered an inquiry into reports that staff at the facility threw a New Year's bash in the intensive care unit area.

More than 12,000 migrants and refugees on Greece's Aegean islands are crammed into facilities designed to hold up to 5,000 people, the regional governor for the northern Aegean, Christiana Kalogirou, told Skai TV on Wednesday, adding that existing conditions "do not match up with our values."

Authorities on the Greek island of Lesvos say they have blocked a ship carrying container homes for refugees and other migrants in protest at the refusal of the government and the European Union to move more people to Greece's mainland.

The body of 10-year-old Afghan boy was found in a boat carrying 66 migrants to the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos on Saturday.

The boy, who had set off from Turkey with his parents and two younger brothers, is said to have suffocated as other passengers tried to get on board a Frontex vessel from Bulgaria which located their boat east of Lesvos.

Two people were killed and another five injured in a road accident involving a flock of sheep on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos, authorities said on Monday.

According to reports, the sheep were being illegally transferred after dark on Sunday night in violation of a ban on all livestock movements on the island - in response to an outbreak of sheep pox.

A total of 3,519 refugees and migrants arrived on the northern Aegean islands during the month of September, the highest monthly arrival rate so far this year.

Lesvos received the highest number, with 2,170 arrivals, Samos 881 and Chios 567. According to the interior ministry, 13,356 is the total number of refugees and migrants currently on the islands.