Speedboat capsizings off Lesbos and Samos kill 12 migrants, including an infant

Two capsizings within hours

A dozen migrants died in two separate speedboat capsizings in the Aegean Sea, the Greek coast guard said on Monday, 19 October. The first happened south of Lesbos late on Sunday, 18 October, when a boat carrying Syrian and Palestinian migrants hit the port flank of a Greek coast guard ship with its bow and went over. Six people died there: four men, one woman and an infant. Eight survivors were taken to hospital, and one of them was detained as a suspected people smuggler. The short but often dangerous crossing from the Turkish coast to the Greek islands is usually made in inflatable dinghies or other small boats.

The second boat overturned north of Samos at around dawn on Monday, killing five men and one woman. The coast guard said the speedboat, which was carrying migrants from Turkey, made a sudden manoeuvre before it overturned about four nautical miles north of the island, while ANSA put the distance at 3.7 miles. Accounts of the rescue differ. ANSA reported 14 survivors, while AP said about 15 people had been rescued so far, including an Iranian man suspected of being a people smuggler. A coast guard vessel and a helicopter were still searching for three missing passengers, a coast guard spokesperson said.

Arrest and government response

Authorities arrested a 37-year-old Turkish national who had been among the survivors of the Lesbos capsizing, and identified him as the suspected smuggler and operator of the boat. Greece's Maritime Affairs Minister Vasilis Kikilias said evidence so far indicated that the speedboat struck the left side of a coast guard vessel with its bow. The exact circumstances are under investigation. Kikilias also described his 'sorrow and rage' in a post on X, calling the six deaths off Lesbos a criminal act by people he called modern-day slave traders. He made the government's position clear in a further statement.

Our position is clear: zero tolerance for people smugglers.

The government has taken a hard line against smugglers, whom it blamed for the deaths.

Crossings and earlier deaths

Frontex reported on Monday that irregular border crossings into the 27-nation EU were down by a third so far this year, yet the eastern Mediterranean remained the busiest route. The agency counted around 31,800 crossings in the first three quarters of 2026, a fall of 15% from the same period a year earlier. The corridor from Libya to Crete was the busiest section, ahead of the eastern Aegean islands and the land border with Turkey.

Deadly incidents on these routes are frequent, ANSA noted. In September, one person died and 25 others were reported missing after a migrant boat sank off Gavdos, near Crete. Human rights groups pointed to a collision off Chios in February, which killed 15 refugees. Survivors of that incident accused the coast guard of driving over them without warning, a claim the coast guard denies.

Greece was at the front line of Europe's migration crisis in 2015 and 2016, when nearly 1 million people landed on its islands, mainly from Turkey. Since then, rights groups have accused Greece of forcibly returning migrants and asylum seekers at its sea and land borders. Greece denies the practice and says its coast guard acts with full respect for human lives and rights.