4 migrants die trying to reach eastern Greek island in small boat

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — At least four migrants died in the eastern Aegean Sea on Monday when a small boat bringing them from nearby Turkey sank in wind-tossed waters just off the island of Samos, Greek authorities said.

The coast guard said five other people were rescued after the accident, but it was unclear how many had originally been on the boat and whether any more were missing.

Greek state-run ERT television and an international medical charity said the boat was thought to have been carrying at least 30 passengers.

The coast guard said a number of migrants were later located on Samos, but it could not be immediately established whether they were survivors from the shipwreck or had arrived separately in another boat.

The bodies of four women were found during a large search and rescue operation involving three coast guard patrol boats, a private vessel, an air force helicopter and crews on land.

The alarm was raised by a local resident who heard screams and cries for help from the sea, local officials said.

It was not known how the boat, believed to have been a small dinghy, sank, and there was no immediate information on the identities or nationalities of the survivors and the dead.

Sonia Balleron, the head of the Greece mission for the international medical charity Doctors Without Borders, said the group was “shocked and outraged” by the sinking and was providing emergency support to the survivors.

“These deaths are the tragic consequence of inhumane migration policies,” Balleron said in a statement. Human rights groups accuse European authorities of failing to provide legal migration paths for people seeking a better life in the continent.

Greece lies along one of the most popular routes into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Despite a crackdown by Greek authorities along the land and sea border with Turkey, thousands of people make it across, often from the Turkish coast to Greek islands using flimsy inflatable dinghies.

In recent months, smugglers have also increasingly turned to ferrying migrants in powerful speedboats.

Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Members of Doctors Without Borders and a coast guard officer help a pregnant woman who survived after a boat carrying migrants ran into trouble off the coast of the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos, Greece, on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Svarnias)

Members of Doctors Without Borders and coast guards officers help a pregnant woman to embark on a vessel with other survivors, after a boat carrying migrants ran into trouble off the coast of the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos, Greece, on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Svarnias)

Members of Doctors Without Borders help a pregnant woman who survived after a boat carrying migrants ran into trouble off the coast of the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos, Greece, on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Svarnias)

A helicopter and a vessel with coast guards officers take part in a search and rescue operation after a boat carrying migrants ran into trouble off the coast of the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos, Greece, on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Svarnias)

A vessel with coast guards officers takes part in a search and rescue operation after a boat carrying migrants ran into trouble off the coast of the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos, Greece, on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Svarnias)

Survivors sit on a vessel after a boat carrying migrants ran into trouble off the coast of the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos, Greece, on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Svarnias)

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (AP) — A popular suburban Detroit library reopened Monday after someone had returned more than a movie over the weekend.

The library in Royal Oak said it was closed Sunday after staff members encountered creepy crawlies when a DVD case in the drop box was opened.

A pest control company investigated and found no more insects, the library said.

“The photos we shared showed that it was a cockroach. We are clear,” the library said on Facebook.

Library director Sandy Irwin offered a bit of humor from the stacks.

“I’m a librarian, not a pest control professional," Irwin told the Detroit Free Press, “but I will look up 1,000 types of bugs.”

The return box sits outside of the closed library, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, in Royal, Oak, Michigan, after someone returned a DVD with bugs inside the case. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)