Greece

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The European Union’s border agency is seeking “clarifications and information” from Greece’s coast guard on two alleged cases of migrants who crossed by boat being illegally deported back to Turkey, a European official said Friday.

The official said Frontex’s executive director Hans Leijtens wrote to a senior police official representing Greece on the Frontex management board, requesting a reply by July 10. The agency helps patrol EU member Greece’s eastern borders.

MALAKASA/KALAMATA, Greece, June 30 (Reuters) - Survivors of a boat disaster that likely killed hundreds of migrants near Greece have given accounts of traffickers in North Africa cramming them into a clapped-out fishing trawler. They recounted hellish conditions above and below deck, with no food or water.

Some also said the tragic end, when it came, was precipitated by the actions of the Greek coastguard. They have told judicial authorities of a doomed attempt to tow the overloaded trawler that caused the vessel to capsize in the early hours of June 14.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — An exit poll from Greece’s second election in five weeks indicates the conservative New Democracy party has won by a landslide, gaining enough parliamentary seats to form a government for a second four-year term.

The poll projects Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ party gaining 40-44% of the vote, with his main rival, the left-wing Syriza party suffering a crushing defeat with just 16-19% projected support, even worse than his 20% in the last elections in May.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — With the formerly ascendant, Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn party broken, its leadership in prison, and the anti-Western left defanged, Greece’s political fringes are looking more gauche than sinister.

Still, up to five small parties — three on the far right and two on the far left — could conceivably reach the 3% support needed to enter Parliament in Sunday’s repeat elections, despite a swing back to mainstream politicians as the scars of Greece’s 10-year financial crisis gradually heal.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Authorities continued to search Saturday for victims and survivors of a trawler that sank off the coast of Greece with as many as 750 migrants on board, as conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis blasted critics of the rescue operation.

Naysayers, Mitsotakis said at a campaign stop in the town of Sparta, should turn their ire against traffickers he called “human scum.” The vessel sank on Wednesday.

16 June 2023; MEMO: A French citizen tore down a copy of the Quran at a mosque in Greece's Western Thrace, representatives of the region's local Turkish minority said Thursday, Anadolu Agency reports.

16 June 2023; MEMO: EU's Border Agency had alerted Greek authorities about a migrant boat a day before it capsized off the coast of Greece, its chief, Hans Leijtens, has confirmed, Anadolu Agency reports.

"My colleagues detected on Tuesday a fishing boat, heading for Greece, with around 600 people aboard," Frontex chief, Leijtens, said in an interview with German daily, Suddeutsche Zeitung.

KALAMATA, Greece, June 16 (Reuters) - A Syrian teenager who survived a shipwreck that killed at least 78 people off Greece was emotionally reunited with his elder brother on Friday, but there was no news for other relatives searching for loved ones.

Witness accounts suggested between 400 and 750 people had packed the 20- to 30 metre-long (65- to 100-foot) fishing boat that capsized and sank early on Wednesday morning about 50 miles (80 km) from the southern coastal town of Pylos.

KALAMATA, Greece, June 15 (Reuters) - Rescuers scoured the seas off Greece on Thursday following a shipwreck that killed at least 78 migrants, as hopes of survivors dwindled and fears grew that hundreds more, including children, may have drowned inside the crowded vessel's hold.

Reports suggested between 400 and 750 people had packed the fishing boat that departed the Libyan port of Tobruk and capsized and sank early on Wednesday morning in deep waters about 50 miles (80 km) from the southern coastal town of Pylos. Greek authorities said 104 survivors had been brought ashore.

14 June 2023; MEMO: At least 79 migrants drowned early on Wednesday and hundreds more were feared dead or missing after their overloaded boat capsized and sank in open seas off Greece, in one of Europe's deadliest shipping disasters, Reuters reports.