Two members of the Greek coast guard and twenty-five rescued migrants were transferred to the hospital on the island of Chios, off the coast of which the accident occurred.

Greek coast guards conduct rescue operations in a port on the island of Chios, in the eastern Aegean Sea, Greece, on February 3, 2026, after a collision with a migrant boat. PANTELIS FYKARIS/POLITISCHIOS.GR VIA AP

Fourteen migrants were killed on Tuesday evening, February 3, when their boat collided with a Greek coast guard vessel off the island of Chios in the Aegean Sea, a Greek port police official told Agence France-Presse.

"Fourteen people died after a port police patrol boat collided with a high-speed speedboat," the official said.

Greek authorities initially provided no details about the circumstances of the accident, which occurred near the island close to the coast of neighboring Turkey. Two coast guard members were transferred to the hospital in Chios, and 25 migrants were rescued, according to initial reports from the coast guard. Among the injured are seven children and a pregnant woman, according to the public broadcaster ERT and the Greek news agency ANA.

Search operation in progress

According to ERT, the collision occurred after a port police patrol boat spotted a migrant vessel off the coast of Chios. The boat sounded its warning signals, but the vessel then maneuvered to evade the patrol boat, according to the same source. The coast guard and the Greek Air Force, with a helicopter, are participating in the ongoing search operation, ERT reports.

Many people seeking asylum in the European Union attempt the perilous crossing between the Turkish coast and the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea. Chios is located just a short distance from Turkey.

Deadly shipwrecks remain frequent. In early December 2025, seventeen people were found dead after their boat capsized off the coast of Crete (southern Italy), and fifteen others were reported missing. Only two people survived.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a UN agency, had recorded in November a total of more than 1,700 people who would have died or gone missing in 2025 on the migration routes of the Mediterranean and off the coast of West Africa, in the Atlantic.