Two migrants die after boat hits rocky shore on Greek island of Chios

(Reuters) -Two migrants died after their boat collided with a rocky shoreline on the Greek island of Chios late on Thursday, Greece’s coast guard said on Friday.

Fire service crews initially rescued five people from the site, including two who were unconscious, the coast guard said. Subsequent searches on land located 24 more migrants in the surrounding area.

Authorities said 12 people were taken by ambulance to Chios General Hospital, where two unconscious women were pronounced dead. The remaining 17 people were transferred to the Chios Reception and Identification Center.

Greece was on the front line of a migration crisis in 2015 and 2016, when more than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa crossed into Europe.

Since then, migrant flows have ebbed. Greece has recently toughened its migration rules, following a resurgence of arrivals from Libya via the islands of Crete and Gavdos.

(Reporting by Antonis Pothitos; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus.)