Syrian Boy Drowns at Sea off Greece in First Fatality after Turkey Opens Border

Kastanies/Lesbos: A young Syrian boy died on Monday after being pulled from the sea when a boat capsized off the Greek island of Lesbos, Greek officials said, the first reported fatality since Turkey opened its border last week to let migrants reach Europe.

Separately, two Turkish security sources told Reuters a Syrian migrant had died from injuries on Monday after Greek security forces intervened to prevent migrants crossing from Turkey into Greece, but Athens branded the claim "fake news".

More than 10,000 migrants, mostly from Syria, other Middle Eastern states and Afghanistan, have reached Turkey's land borders with EU states Greece and Bulgaria since Ankara said last Thursday it would stop keeping them on its territory.

The surge, which has seen Greek and Turkish police firing tear gas into crowds caught in the no-man's land between the two borders, has revived memories of the 2015-16 refugee crisis, when more than a million people arrived in Europe from Turkey.

Further south, at least 1,000 migrants have reached Greece's eastern Aegean islands since Sunday morning, Greek police say.

"This is an invasion," Development Minister Adonis Georgiadis told Skai TV on Monday.

The Greek coast guard said the boat which capsized off Lesbos had been escorted there by a Turkish vessel. The dead boy was aged about six and was among 48 people plucked from the sea.

Another dinghy with about 30 Afghans arrived on Lesbos early in the morning, a Reuters journalist reported from the island. Thirty-two others were rescued in the seas off Farmakonissi, a small island close to Turkey, the coast guard said.

About 4,000 people are believed to have drowned in the Aegean during the 2015-16 crisis trying to reach Greece, while some 42,000 migrants are still living in severely overcrowded camps on the Greek islands.

The latest migrant surge follows Turkey's decision to stop enforcing a 2016 accord with the European Union whereby it stopped migrants entering the bloc in return for cash.

Turkey, already home to 3.7 million Syrian refugees, has another million arriving on its doorstep from a new surge of fighting in northern Syria and says it cannot handle any more.

'We're stuck here'

Greek officials have accused Turkey of orchestrating a coordinated effort to drive migrants across the frontier.

One Greek policeman accused Turkish soldiers at the Kastanies border gate of "giving cutters" to migrants to cut holes in the fence to get through. Reuters could not independently verify the report.

Some migrants camped near the border had erected makeshift tents or built bonfires to stay warm.

"We're going to keep waiting here because we left our homes. Those of us who had homes, who had things, we sold them and got money for them. If we want to go back we will sleep in the streets," said Jamal Kassar, a Syrian migrant.

"There are people who also gave up their (Turkish) identity cards. What can we do, we're stuck here, we can't go back home and we can't cross (the border)."

A Greek government spokesman said a video circulating on social media showing a young man with wounds to the head laid out on the ground near the border was "fake news". Two Turkish security sources said the Syrian man had died of his wounds.

"We call upon everyone to use caution when reporting news that furthers Turkish propaganda," spokesman Stelios Petsas said on Twitter.

The EU's chief executive, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed sympathy on Monday with Turkey over the conflict in Syria but said its decision to let refugees and migrants cross into Eurpoe "cannot be an answer or solution".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose decision to open Germany's borders to refugees helped swell the 2015 influx, also said Turkey should not express its dissatisfaction with the EU "on the back of refugees".

Von der Leyen was due to visit the Greek-Turkish border on Tuesday with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

The United Nations' refugee agency on Monday criticised Mitsotakis' decision to stop accepting asylum applications for a month, saying it had no legal basis.

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov of Bulgaria, which also shares a land border with Turkey, was due to hold talks in Ankara on Monday evening with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on the migrant crisis.

Erdogan opened Turkey's border after at least 33 Turkish soldiers sent to Syria to monitor a crumbling ceasefire there were killed last week.