Four migrants dead after shipwreck off Greek island of Lesbos

Four migrants died after their boat sank off the Greek island of Lesbos, Greece's coastguard said on Tuesday after launching a search-and-rescue operation in the area.

So far, 34 migrants have been found safe ashore in the south of the island, a coastguard official said, adding that at least three vessels and one helicopter assisted the operation. Four bodies were recovered at sea.

Initial reports indicated that there were 38 people in total on the boat. The circumstances of the incident were unclear.

Greece was on the front line of a 2015-16 migration crisis when more than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa crossed into Europe.

Migrant flows subsequently ebbed. But the Mediterranean nation has recently toughened migration rules, following a resurgence of arrivals from Libya via the Greek islands of Crete and Gavdos.

In 2025, an estimated 58,194 to 70,860 migrants attempted to cross the Mediterranean by boat by mid-year according to a Press Review released by Migreurop in July 2025. 

43,000 to 55,000 out of those were successful arrivals in the first few months and while more than 12,000 were intercepted.

Migreurop also reported that as of mid-October 2025, at least 743 migrants have died or gone missing attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea this year, with 538 deaths on the Central Mediterranean route alone.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) also reported 947 deaths through July 2025, and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) noted over 700 deaths in the Central Mediterranean by mid-August. 

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