By Online Desk
At least 16 women have died and another 15 people are missing after a migrant boat sank off the Greek island of Lesbos on Wednesday night.
The Greek coastguard said the dinghy had left the Turkish coast carrying 40 people in very high winds, reports the BBC.
Elsewhere in Greece dozens of migrants were rescued when their boat hit rocks near the southern island of Kythira, the report said.
Coastguard video showed a group of people trapped beneath a cliff as rescuers pulled them to safety.
Both boats, according to the report, went down within hours of each other on Wednesday night and early on Thursday, hundreds of kilometres apart.
A report by agencies in Euronews recalled Pope Francis visiting migrants at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos last December and slammed the indifference and self-interest shown by Europe “that condemns to death those on the fringes.”
“Please, let us stop this shipwreck of civilisation!” Francis said at the Mavrovouni camp.
Lesbos lies east of the Greek mainland and is around 20km from Turkey’s coastline.
“I ask every man and woman, all of us, to overcome the paralysis of fear, the indifference that kills, the cynical disregard that nonchalantly condemns to death those on the fringes,” Francis added.
“Let us stop ignoring reality, stop constantly shifting responsibility, stop passing off the issue of migration to others, as if it mattered to no one and was only a pointless burden to be shouldered by somebody else,” the report quoted Pope Francis as saying.
At least 16 women have died and another 15 people are missing after a migrant boat sank off the Greek island of Lesbos on Wednesday night.
The Greek coastguard said the dinghy had left the Turkish coast carrying 40 people in very high winds, reports the BBC.
Elsewhere in Greece dozens of migrants were rescued when their boat hit rocks near the southern island of Kythira, the report said.
Coastguard video showed a group of people trapped beneath a cliff as rescuers pulled them to safety.
Both boats, according to the report, went down within hours of each other on Wednesday night and early on Thursday, hundreds of kilometres apart.
A report by agencies in Euronews recalled Pope Francis visiting migrants at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos last December and slammed the indifference and self-interest shown by Europe “that condemns to death those on the fringes.”
“Please, let us stop this shipwreck of civilisation!” Francis said at the Mavrovouni camp.
Lesbos lies east of the Greek mainland and is around 20km from Turkey’s coastline.
“I ask every man and woman, all of us, to overcome the paralysis of fear, the indifference that kills, the cynical disregard that nonchalantly condemns to death those on the fringes,” Francis added.
“Let us stop ignoring reality, stop constantly shifting responsibility, stop passing off the issue of migration to others, as if it mattered to no one and was only a pointless burden to be shouldered by somebody else,” the report quoted Pope Francis as saying.
