ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A collision between a speedboat carrying migrants and a Greek coast guard patrol vessel off the eastern Aegean island of Chios has killed at least 15 people, the coast guard said late Tuesday, while a search and rescue operation involving patrol boats, a helicopter and divers was underway for potentially missing people.
The bodies of 14 people — 11 men and three women — were recovered from the sea, the coast guard said, while another 25 migrants, including about 11 children, were rescued and transported to a hospital on Chios, as were two coast guard officers who were injured in the incident.
One of the injured women later died in hospital, the coast guard added, bringing the total death toll to at least 15.
The total number of people who had been on board the speedboat was not immediately clear, and a search and rescue operation involving four patrol vessels, an air force helicopter and a private boat carrying divers was underway for potentially missing passengers.
Video footage by a local news site showed at least one person being carried in a blanket from a boat moored on the side of a jetty into a waiting coast guard vehicle with blue flashing lights, as others appear to lead two children, one of them limping, toward the car.
The coast guard did not immediately have further information on exactly how the collision occurred.
Michalis Giannakos, the head of Greece's public hospital workers' union, said staff at the hospital in Chios were all on alert to handle the sudden influx of injured and were on standby for potentially more people. Speaking on Greece's Open TV channel, Giannakos said several of the injured required surgery.
Greece is a major entry point into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Fatal accidents are a common occurrence. Many undertake the short but often perilous crossing from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands in the eastern Aegean. But increased patrols and allegations of pushbacks — summary deportations without allowing for asylum applications — by Greek authorities have reduced crossing attempts.
Greece, along with several other European Union countries, has been tightening its regulations on migration. In December, the European Union was overhauling its migration system, including streamlining deportations and increasing detentions.
There has long been a fierce debate among EU members about migration. Since a surge in asylum-seekers and other migrants to Europe a decade ago, public debate on the issue has shifted and far-right parties have gained political power. EU migration policies have hardened, and the number of asylum-seekers is down from record levels.
Greek coast guard officers carry out rescue operations at a port on the eastern Aegean island of Chios, Greece, late Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, after a collision between a migrant speedboat and a coast guard patrol vessel killed multiple people, authorities said. (Pantelis Fykaris/Politischios.gr via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump held a nearly two-hour meeting on Tuesday with his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, that both called friendly — a dramatic about-face from weeks earlier, when Trump accused Petro of pumping cocaine into the U.S. and threatened his country with military action.
Afterward, Trump tried to downplay his past criticisms, saying, “He and I weren’t exactly the best of friends, but I wasn’t insulted because I never met him. I didn’t know him at all.”
“We had a very good meeting,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a subsequent event. “I thought he was terrific.”
Petro held his own post-meeting news conference and said the pair emerged “with a positive and optimistic view.” He said, “What brings us together is freedom. And that’s how the meeting started out.”
Colombia's president said Trump gave him a red “Make America Great Again” cap and Petro said he wanted to put an ‘s’ on it to make it, “Make (the) Americas Great Again,” a reference to North and South America being aligned culturally, economically and historically.
Petro has criticized Trump and the U.S. operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. But Trump said more recently that Colombia’s leader has become more willing to work with his administration to stem the flow of illegal drugs.
Petro said afterward that he and Trump had “looked at ways in which we can reactivate Venezuela” including through energy projects. Trump said the pair discussed cooperation in counternarcotics operations, which Petro echoed, while also noting that there are parts of his country where drug cultivation can be the only way to make a living.
“If people have no options to eat, and live in the jungle, or places where there is no transportation to produce something legal, what there will be is drug trafficking,” he said.
Petro said he also told Trump, “You need to go after the kingpins,” but that there's a belief in the U.S. and Colombia “that capos are the ones in uniform and (carrying) weapons in Colombia. That's the second line of drug trafficking. The top tier lives in Dubai, Madrid, Miami.” He said he provided the U.S. president with names.
Colombia's president also said he'd invited Trump to visit the Colombian resort city of Cartagena.
“We didn’t talk about personal matters, but I did invite him to Cartagena, which I told him was a cool and beautiful place to live,” Petro said. He also said that he'd sought Trump's help in mediating an escalating trade war between his country and Ecuador.
Trump gave Petro a copy of his book, “The Art of the Deal,” with a signed inscription reading, “You are great.” Petro posed a picture of the book on X and wrote ironically in Spanish, “What did Trump mean to say to me with this dedication? I don't understand English very well.”
Leading up to the meeting, Petro, a leftist politician, had continued to poke at the conservative U.S. president, calling Trump an “accomplice to genocide” in the Gaza Strip while asserting that the capture of Maduro was a kidnapping.
And, ahead of his departure for Washington, Petro called on Colombians to take to the streets of Bogotá during the White House meeting.
Just minutes before his conversation with Trump started, Petro, in a video shared by his office, described himself as a politician who has denounced and prosecuted drug traffickers.
Accompanied by one of his daughters and his granddaughter, he lamented that most of his children live outside Colombia, in exile, due to the fight he's waging against drug trafficking. “We have truly suffered its effects directly,” Petro said.
Historically, Colombia has been a U.S. ally. For the past 30 years, the U.S. has worked closely with Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine, to arrest drug traffickers, fend off rebel groups and boost economic development in rural areas. Colombia is also designated by the U.S. as a major non-NATO ally.
But relations between the leaders have been strained by Trump’s massing of U.S. forces in the region for unprecedented deadly military strikes targeting suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific. At least 126 people have been killed in 36 known strikes.
In October, Trump's Republican administration announced it was imposing sanctions on Petro, his family and a member of his government over accusations of involvement in the global drug trade.
The Treasury Department leveled the penalties against Petro; his wife, Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia; his son, Nicolas Fernando Petro Burgos; and Colombian Interior Minister Armando Alberto Benedetti.
The sanctions, which had to be waived to allow Petro to travel to Washington this week, came after the U.S. administration in September announced it was adding Colombia to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in three decades.
Then came the audacious military operation last month to capture Maduro and his wife to face federal drug conspiracy charges, a move that Petro has forcefully denounced. Following Maduro’s ouster, Trump put Colombia on notice and ominously warned Petro he could be next.
Colombia is “run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,” Trump said of Petro last month. “And he’s not gonna be doing it very long, let me tell you.”
But a few days later, tensions eased somewhat after a call between the leaders. Trump said Petro in their hourlong conversation explained “the drug situation and other disagreements.” And Trump extended an invitation to Petro for the White House visit.
In a diplomatic gesture, Colombian officials said Petro came bearing gifts, including a signature Wounaan indigenous basket from Colombia's Chocó region for Trump and a handmade gown crafted by indigenous artisans from Nariño for first lady Melania Trump.
Trump didn't personally greet Petro upon his arrival and pose for a photograph with him in front of the North Portico of the White House before a gathered press — a set piece for most foreign leaders' visits. Instead, Petro arrived at a side entrance of the White House.
Suarez reported from Bogotá, Colombia. Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Moriah Balingit contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
FILE - Colombian President Gustavo Petro arrives at the presidential palace in Panama City, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
