Roundup: 15 refugees missing in new boat capsize in Aegean

A new rescue operation was underway on Wednesday to locate 15 refugees who went missing off the coasts of Samos island when the boat carrying a total of 31 people from Turkey to Greece capsized, Greek Coast Guard said.

Sixteen refugees were rescued by a Turkish fishing vessel that was sailing nearby. Survivors said that there were another 15 people on board.

This is the latest incident as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called leaders of the Balkans and Central Europe for a new emergency meeting in Brussels on Sunday on the refugee crisis.

At the forefront of the refugees influx, Greece has received more than 500,000 undocumented refugees and migrants who illegally entered the country since the start of 2015, according to the latest official figures from the UN refugee agency and Greek authorities.

Only in September Greek Coast Guard reported 141,919 incoming refugees and migrants and arrested 97 human traffickers.

In the past weekend the Greek Coast Guard rescued 2,561 people in 69 incidents in the Aegean Sea.

More than 3,000 people have lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea since the start of 2015.

"The Mediterranean is not a sea that bodies should be washed ashore," the President of the Hellenic republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos said, receiving the visiting Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov in Athens on Wednesday.

Pavlopoulos called for strengthened cross-border collaboration to provide protection to refugees.

Bilateral cooperation on the handling of the refugee crisis was on the top of the agenda in talks between the two sides. Endit