At least 15 people were killed and 24 others injured after a boat carrying migrants and refugees collided with a Greek coastguard vessel near the island of Chios, off the coast of the Çeşme peninsula in the Turkish province of Izmir. The tragedy occurred last night in the Aegean Sea, authorities in Greece said.
The incident took place on Tuesday night, when the boat loaded with migrants collided with the Greek patrol boat off the coast of the Greek island of Chios (Sakız, in Turkish). Following the accident, a search and rescue operation by sea and air was launched at dawn to locate possible missing persons in the vicinity of Mirsinidi beach, in the region of Vrontados, in the east of the island, involving five Greek Coast Guard patrol boats and a helicopter.
According to information provided by the Greek authorities and quoted by Turkish media, the teams have so far managed to recover from the sea the bodies of 14 people, 11 men and 3 women; later, a woman who had been taken in serious condition to the Chios State Hospital died despite medical efforts to save her life. Of the 24 injured hospitalised, 7 are men, 6 women and 11 children; three of the injured underwent emergency surgery in the early hours of the morning due to severe internal organ damage.
It was also reported that two pregnant migrant women were due to undergo emergency surgery; however, tragically, during examinations at the hospital it was confirmed that their unborn babies had died. Most of the injured suffered internal injuries such as ruptured liver, kidney damage and severe head injuries: according to medical sources, these injuries are consistent with a violent collision.
As for the Greek Coast Guard members, one male and one female crew member of the patrol boat suffered minor injuries in the accident and were also taken to the Chios State Hospital. While the man suffered an arm injury, the woman was diagnosed with a mild concussion.
The crash was “extremely violent“
According to initial reports, the fatal outcome occurred when a Greek coastguard patrol boat that had left the Inuses islands detected a speed boat carrying approximately 30 migrants and refugees off the coast of Chios on Tuesday night. It is believed that the migrants were mainly from the Middle East, although this has not been officially confirmed.
According to a Coast Guard statement, following a warning from the Coast Guard, “the pilot of a high-speed vessel, without navigation lights and carrying foreign passengers, did not obey the visual and acoustic signals of the Coast Guard“. The text added that “instead of stopping, the pilot turned around and the vessel collided with the starboard side of the patrol boat”, specifying that “the force of the impact caused the boat to capsize and sink”.
Other unofficial information, however, suggests that both vessels were travelling at high speed and that dangerous manoeuvres may have taken place on both sides, although it is not yet clear which of the two vessels hit the other; in any case, what has been confirmed is that the impact was extremely violent. Some accounts of the incident pointed to alleged shooting by the coastguards, although this does not seem to have been substantiated: the injuries observed on the wounded taken to hospital were not consistent with gunshot wounds, and there is no official statement on the matter at this stage.
Forced expulsions and human rights violations by Greece
The Athens authorities have indicated that all aspects of the incident will be clarified after an investigation by the Coast Guard and the Ministry of Maritime Affairs. This, however, is not the first deadly incident in which migrants have lost their lives when approaching Greek Coast Guard vessels. In recent years, human rights organisations and numerous media have documented and denounced repeated cases in which coastguards have reportedly turned back or thrown migrants into the sea in the Aegean, leaving them adrift abandoned at sea or manoeuvring close to their boats in an attempt to sink them, causing shipwrecks and deaths at sea.
These practices, described by international groups as forced removals at sea and human rights violations, and which have also been denounced on numerous occasions by the Turkish authorities, have been under scrutiny and investigation by international bodies. Authorities in Turkey have documented numerous cases in which Greek coastguards pushed boats with migrants into Turkish territorial waters in the Aegean, or damaged them so that they had to be rescued by Turkish coastguards.
According to data from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), more than 1,700 migrants died or went missing in 2025 on migration routes in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic – off the coast of West Africa – trying to reach Europe. The International Organization for Migration says that, in the Mediterranean alone, some 33,000 people have died or gone missing since 2014.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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