Five Children Drowned as Thousands of Migrants Continue to Arrive in Greece

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At least eight people — including five children — have drowned and 34 are missing after a wooden boat carrying hundreds of migrants sank off the Greek island of Lesbos on Wednesday night.

Four coastguard vessels, three helicopters, and several fishing boats staged a dramatic rescue to save 242 people from the vessel after the incident. As the search operation continues, aid workers on the Greek island are reeling from what is just the latest disaster in the European migrant crisis.

There are conflicting reports about how many people have died in a series of other incidents on Wednesday. The coastguard said that in total 16 people drowned, including 11 children. A baby has been missing for more than 12 hours.

Another 123 people were rescued off the islands of Samos and Agathonisi, and in another incident off Lesbos.

Kirk Day, the regional refugee representative for the International Rescue Committee, told VICE News that 9,500 migrants arrived in Greece in a single 24-hour period last week — the largest number of people in that time frame so far. The average amount of arrivals each day over the last seven days has been 9,000.

Aid agencies and observers have expected the numbers attempting the crossing to Greece to dwindle as winter approaches and the sea becomes more dangerous. Day called this a "critical assumption" that has been proven false by the past month.

Watch the VICE News documentary, Migrants and Refugees Test Lesbos' Limits: Breaking Borders (Dispatch 5):

He said that a big factor in this is the use of larger vessels that carry more people, as well as a growing awareness among migrants that Europe is attempting to shut its borders. "I think if you put the weather and these other political considerations together, it's forcing people to come as quickly as they can and any way they can," Day said.

He added that more incidents like this one are, unfortunately, to be fully expected.

"For most of the summer it's been these smaller dinghies that have held 45-50 people even though they were meant to hold far fewer. Now, with the larger boats, that's going to pose more challenges for the relief efforts. Two to three times the amount of people will need to be met and provided assistance straight away."

Meanwhile, figures released by Save the Children showed that more than 70 children have drowned since the death of Syrian three-year-old Aylan Kurdi in September, a tragedy that made global headlines after a photographer released an image showing him lying facedown on a beach in Turkey.

Related: The Mental Health Crisis Facing Europe's Refugees

Lesbos, which lies less than six miles from the Turkish coast in the north Aegean Sea, has been a primary gateway for thousands of migrants entering the European Union's outermost border.

Doctors and volunteers on Lesbos made desperate efforts to help a baby breathe, TV footage showed. Some of the survivors were sheltered in a chapel, a Reuters witness said.

"We will really support Greece," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told a Greek newspaper before an official visit to Athens on Thursday, the latest in a series of visits by EU officials to the crisis-hit country.

"It's clear that Greece — which is trying to get back on its feet right now — is feeling this influx as a particular burden."

More than 500,000 refugees and migrants have entered Greece through its outlying islands since January, transiting on to central and northern Europe in what has become the biggest humanitarian crisis on the continent in two decades.

Related: Migrants Suffer as Greek Islands Buckle Under Dual Crises

Inflows have increased as refugees try to beat the onset of winter, crossing the narrow sea passages between Turkey and Greece in small overcrowded boats.

EU leaders have agreed to boost cooperation and provide UN-aided housing for 100,000 people, half of them in Greece. The EU is expected to cover costs for accommodation for 20,000 in leased apartments, in addition to temporary camps for 30,000 people.

Relocation of migrants from Greece to other EU states could take up to two months, Migration Minister Ioannis Mouzalas said, adding that the risk of thousands of refugees being trapped in Greece from possible border closures was a remote case.

"That's a tragic scenario… but I consider the chances of that very small," he said.

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