19 migrants drown trying to reach Greek island as attacks against refugees soar in Germany
The body of a refugee, one of 19 confirmed dead, is brought ashore after a boat carrying refugees sank off of the Greek island of Lesbos on Sunday.
The bodies of 19 migrants were pulled Sunday from the Aegean Sea, in three capsizings of boats carrying asylum-seekers desperate to reach Europe in search of a new life, authorities said.
Four others were rescued and seven are missing.
The dead included two men, one woman and a young boy, believed to be from refugee smuggling boats that sank near the Greek island of Lesbos. Their bodies were found early Sunday washed up on a stretch of northern Lesbos that has seen the heaviest traffic of refugees trying to get into Europe from Turkey.
Another 11 drowned after a boat carrying nearly 30 refugees sank in rough seas near the eastern island of Samos.
The number of smuggling boats crossing over to Greece from the nearby Turkish coast fell Sunday as strong winds raked the eastern Aegean Sea.
Meanwhile, the migrant crisis took a violent twist in Germany, where six Syrian refugees were attacked over the weekend in three incidents.
Two of the attacks were committed by groups of more than 20 people who harassed and beat asylum seekers with baseball bats.
Two victims were treated at a local hospital for their injuries.
In another attack, 30 people attacked three men.
In a third attack, a Syrian man was injured by pieces of glass when explosives were thrown against the window of his room in an asylum shelter in the eastern state of Saxony.
Several arson attacks were also reported on designated future asylum shelters across Germany.
As of last week, there had been 576 crimes against refugee shelters so far this year, compared to 198 in all of last year, Germany’s interior ministry said.
Germany’s governing coalition has been unable to agree on how to process migrants near the country’s border who have no realistic chance of gaining asylum.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has been meeting with officials on a plan to weed out applicants, but no conclusions have been reached, a spokesman said.
