One Migrant Dead, 18 Rescued Off Greek Island

This picture taken on November 10, 2023 shows the sky following a rain over the Greek capital Athens. (Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP)
This picture taken on November 10, 2023 shows the sky following a rain over the Greek capital Athens. (Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP)
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One Migrant Dead, 18 Rescued Off Greek Island

This picture taken on November 10, 2023 shows the sky following a rain over the Greek capital Athens. (Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP)
This picture taken on November 10, 2023 shows the sky following a rain over the Greek capital Athens. (Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP)

Greece's coastguard rescued 18 migrants and recovered the body of one dead woman on Friday after their boat capsized off an island in the Aegean Sea.
Coastguard vessels and a military helicopter carried out the rescue operation off the island of Agathonisi after the migrants sent a distress signal earlier on Friday, a coastguard official said.
During Europe's 2015 migration crisis, European governments struggled to cope with an influx of more than 1 million people, mostly Syrian refugees who crossed from Türkiye to Greece, overwhelming security and welfare networks.
Migrant flows to Greece had dropped significantly before resurging this year. Nearly 40,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Greece so far in 2023, mostly crossing from Türkiye by sea, according to data from United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.



Romania, Bulgaria Fully Join EU's Borderless Schengen Zone

A general view of the Durankulak border point between Bulgaria and Romania, 01 January 2025. EPA/VASSIL DONEV
A general view of the Durankulak border point between Bulgaria and Romania, 01 January 2025. EPA/VASSIL DONEV
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Romania, Bulgaria Fully Join EU's Borderless Schengen Zone

A general view of the Durankulak border point between Bulgaria and Romania, 01 January 2025. EPA/VASSIL DONEV
A general view of the Durankulak border point between Bulgaria and Romania, 01 January 2025. EPA/VASSIL DONEV

Romania and Bulgaria scrapped land border controls to become full members of the European Union's Schengen free-travel area on Wednesday, joining an expanded bloc of countries whose residents can travel without passport checks.
Fireworks lit the sky at a crossing close to the Bulgarian border town of Ruse just after the stroke of midnight as the Bulgarian and Romanian interior ministers symbolically raised a barrier on the Friendship Bridge straddling the Danube River, Reuters reported. The crossing is a major transit point for international trade.
Checks on travelling by air and sea from Bulgaria and Romania were lifted in March 2024, but land checks continued until Austria last month dropped a veto it had maintained on the grounds that more was needed to stop irregular migration.
Border checks between France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were first dropped in 1985. The Schengen area now covers 25 of the 27 EU member states, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
Ireland and Cyprus are not members of the Schengen zone.