LESBOS, Greece (AP) – Dead migrants float belly-up, stripped of their clothing by churning seas. On shore, wailing women search for loved ones among the shivering, wide-eyed survivors. A rescuer tries to revive a toddler who lies unconscious in her sodden striped sweater.
The scenes bring home a sobering reality: While the flow of migrants into Europe tends to abate as winter nears and the journey becomes more dangerous, this year it has only risen as thousands of people brave death in raging seas and freezing temperatures.
On the beaches of Lesbos, children who looked as young as 4 appeared to be in shock as rescuers wrapped them with blankets to protect against the cold. They were among 242 people rescued from a boat that sank overnight in rough seas off the Greek island’s north coast. Seven people drowned and 34 remained missing.
In all, five separate incidents in the eastern Aegean Sea on Wednesday left at least 11 people dead, most of them children.
Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II is entering a perilous and uncharted phase, as the usual pattern of migrant season ending by autumn is overturned by intensifying fighting in Syria and overcrowding in refugee centers in Turkey and Lebanon. Asylum applications in the European Union are expected to exceed 1 million this year, higher that the peak of 700,000 recorded in the early 1990s, when wars tore Yugoslavia apart.