Over 20 Migrants Missing After Shipwreck Near Lesbos in Greece - Mayor

ATHENS (Sputnik) — More than 20 refugees went missing after the ship crashed with a commercial vessel Saturday near the Greek island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea, Spyros Galinos, the head of the Lesbos municipality, told Sputnik Sunday.

"Such things are now happening every day here. Yesterday evening a ship carrying migrants on board, crashed with a commercial vessel. The ship with the migrants sank. I do not have exact figures on how many migrants went missing, but I think it would be much more than 20, as there were many people on board," Galinos stated.

According to the mayor, who cited preliminary data on the tragedy, the ship with the refugees capsized after the commercial ship passed near it triggering a huge wave.

Earlier this week, the mayor told Sputnik that what was happening in the Aegean was "a pure crime," which the EU-member states were merely observing. He stressed that if the international community did nothing to stop the deaths of migrants at sea and activities of human trafficking gangs, it would become "an accomplice to the crime."

Greece is one of a number of EU member states struggling to cope with a massive inflow of refugees from conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker unveiled, on September 9, a new migrant quota system under which Europe will accept 160,000 migrants over two years, in the context that 200,000 migrants are estimated to have arrived in Greece so far in 2015.