Arya News - A high-speed pursuit between a people-smuggling boat and the Greek coast guard ended with more than a dozen being killed after the vessels collided.
Feb. 4 (UPI) -- At least 15 migrants attempting to reach the European Union were killed and several are missing in the eastern Aegean Sea after the speedboat they were travelling in collided with a Hellenic coast guard vessel.
Two dozen people were pulled from the water , some of them with serious injuries, following the incident Tuesday night off the coast of the Greek island of Chios, less than 15 miles from the Turkish mainland, said Greek authorities.
They said the coast guard was in pursuit of the speedboat, which made a series of dangerous manoeuvres right before the collision in the Chios Strait near Vrontados on the northeastern coast of the island.
Those injured included seven children, two pregnant women and two coast guard officers.
A major search and rescue operation continued into Wednesday with four coast guard vessels, a helicopter and a civilian dive team.
Officials said the incident was one of the most serious they had encountered among numerous high-speed chases with migrant smuggling boats around Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Turkey"s Anatolia peninsula in recent years.
Once the EU"s frontline of a tide of migrants fleeing conflicts in Syria, the wider Middle East and beyond -- mostly via Turkey -- arrivals on the islands fell in 2025, with weekly numbers landing on Chios in December falling below 50, Ministry of Migration records show.
Almost 20,000 arrivals, about 40% of the 2025 total, were to Crete, with the Greek government announcing Tuesday it would open two EU-funded migrant reception facilities on the island by early April.
The Greek coast guard has previously come under fire over its tactics in tackling people smugglers and migrant boats in the Mediterranean, notably the Adriana boat disaster in 2023, in which more than 500 people drowned and other incidents involving significant loss of life.
In May, 17 members of the Hellenic Coast Guard and four officials were charged in connection with a bungled operation involving an overloaded migrant boat off the southern city of Pylos.
The captain of the coast guard vessel was charged with causing a shipwreck resulting in the deaths of 82 people -- the number of bodies recovered -- reckless interference with maritime transport and failure to provide assistance to a vessel in distress at sea.
The charges stemmed from an alleged botched effort to tow the Adriana, which was attempting to smuggle 750 paying migrants to Italy from Libya, causing it to capsize, and then conspiring to cover it up.
The incident also saw the EU launch an investigation into the role of Frontex, the bloc"s border and coast guard agency, in the Adriana disaster and other fatal incidents.
The so-called "own-initiative" inquiry by the EU"s ombudsman focused on documents detailing Frontex"s responsibility to rescue those in distress at sea, including the formal report of the Adriana boat disaster and other recent incidents involving "considerable loss of life in the Mediterranean."