Three people, two of which were minors, died early Thursday morning after a boat carrying undocumented migrants sunk between the eastern Aegean island of Samos and the opposite Turkish coast, where the craft had set off from.
Two of the victims, young boys, had been retrieved from the waters alive but unconscious. The body of an adult man was later recovered in the sea.
The boat, carrying a total of 12 people, overturned under still as yet undetermined conditions, given that calm seas were mostly reported.
Samos is one of a handful of Greek isles preferred by migrant smuggling rings operating in western Turkey for landing third country nationals, hailing from places as far away as sub-Saharan Africa to Myanmar. Tens of thousands of Mideast refugees residing in Turkey, after fleeing conflict zones, have also been ferried over to the Greek isles, the closest EU territory.
