At least 38 refugees drown off Greek island

ATHENS, Greece ��The bodies of 38 people, several of them children, were found in the waters off the Greek island of Farmakonisi Sunday.

“My colleagues are finding more and more people,� a coast guard officer said, suggesting that the death toll from the capsized fishing vessel would rise.

Coast guard rescue teams saved 68 passengers from drowning, while 28 people were able to swim to Farmakonisi on their own.

The accident occurred after the coast guard responded Saturday to the capsizing of two boats.

Four children remained missing from an incident north of the Aegean island of Samos. The coast guard was able to pluck 24 migrants from the sea in that operation.

Thirty-two people were rescued when their boat went down near Lesbos. One refugee on that vessel has not been accounted for, state-run radio reported.

Every day thousands of refugees attempt to make the dangerous sea journey from the coast of Turkey to one of Greece’s islands.

If they make it, virtually all continue their trek north through the Balkans, across Macedonia and Serbia, hoping to enter the European Union’s border-free Schengen zone in Hungary and ask for asylum in Germany and other wealthy Western states.

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