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At least 13 refugees drown when a boat sinks in Aegean Sea

Wednesday, 23 December 2015 6:22 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 23 December 2015 10:21 AM ]

The AFP photo shows refugees who arrived on the Greek island of Lesbos on November 17, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

At least 13 refugees, including seven children, have drowned when their boat sank off the Greek Aegean island of Farmakonissi.

The small boat sankd off the Greek island of Farmakonisi overnight, sending 29 people into the water, an official with the Greek port police told AFP.

The official added that fifteen people were rescued and taken to hospital on the nearby island of Leros, and search is underway for one missing person.

"The weather was not particularly bad but the boat was overloaded as is often the case," the police official said.

On Tuesday, another boat sank off coast of Turkey, leaving 11 refugees dead. Three children were among the victims.

Some 700 people, many of them children, have lost their lives while trying to cross the Aegean to Greece this year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). A majority of over 800,000 refugees have, however, landed in Greece this year.

This file photo shows rescue workers on a jet ski helping refugees as their boat sinks off the Greek island of Lesbos on October 30, 2015. (AP photo)

The total number of refugees entering Europe by land or sea has reached more than one million this year.

Many of the refugees arriving in Europe are Syrians fleeing a foreign-backed militancy in their country. Afghans, Iraqis and Eritreans constitute the other major groups of refugees.

The issue of refugee crisis has caused significant political rifts within the European Union (EU) which in September imposed a plan to resettle 160,000 refugees across the EU bloc. Hungary and Slovakia are taking legal action at the European Court of Justice to challenge the EU quota plan, which has obliged them to accept about 2,300 refugees each.

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