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European Union leaders offer Turkey a detailed package of cash and incentives to agree that all migrants attempting to cross the Aegean Sea by raft or boat would be sent back to Turkey which, in effect, becomes the region's migrant holding center. A number of stumbling blocks remain, such as raising the amount of aid from 3 billion euros to at least 6 billion euros; reducing the "72 arduous conditions" the Turks must meet to implement visa-free travel for Turkish citizens; Europe agrees to accelerate talks with Ankara on its EU bid; etc. Human Rights Watch protests the proposed fast-track collective expulsions that fail to take individual circumstances into account and breach peoples' right to seek asylum.
2016-03-18

At least 25 migrants, including 10 children, drown after their wooden boat capsizes in the Aegean Sea near the seaside town of Didim, Turkey. The Turkish Coast Guard was able to rescue 15 people.
2016-03-6

At least 27 migrants die in a shipwreck in the Aegean Sea when a boat capsizes in the Turkish bay of Edremit, near the Greek island of Lesbos.
2016-02-8

A boat carrying Iraqi Kurd migrants sinks off the Greek island of Samos in the Aegean Sea off Turkey's Anatolian coast, killing at least 24 people, including several children, with 11 others missing.
2016-01-28

Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras lashes out at European "ineptness" in handling the continent's massive immigration crisis. The Associated Press reports 31 more people — mostly children — drowned in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea near the islands of Kalymnos and Rhodes. Turkey's state-run agency says four children drowned and two others are missing after two new accidents with boats headed to Greece's Lesbos and Samos islands. The death toll in the Aegean Sea over the past three days is at least 50. The Greek coast guard says they rescued 600 people in the past 24 hours, while thousands more made it safely from Turkey to Greece's southeastern islands.
2015-10-30

An extensive search is underway in the northeastern Aegean Sea off the Greek island of Lesbos for at least 34 people missing from a boat that sank yesterday. Some 242 people were rescued but eight died, five children, two men and a woman.
2015-10-29

In a pair of incidents on Tuesday and Wednesday, two migrants were killed, 16 are missing, and 48 were rescued from boats heading to Greece from Turkey that capsized in the Aegean Sea.
2015-10-22

Human Rights Watch says unidentified armed men have been disabling boats carrying migrants and asylum seekers in the Aegean Sea traveling from Turkey toward the Greek islands. Witnesses have described eight incidents this month in which masked assailants intercepted and disabled the boats by damaging engines or fuel systems, and in the case of inflatable boats, attempting to puncture hulls.
2015-10-22

Turkey's Anadolu Agency reports that 12 migrants have drowned in the Aegean Sea while trying to get to Europe.
2015-10-17

A five-year-old Syrian girl dies and several other refugees are missing after their boat sinks in the Aegean Sea near the Greek island of Lesbos. The Greek Coast Guard says it rescued 11 people from the boat carrying 26 people.
2015-09-19