22 migrants drown off Greece

Hundreds of refugees on Thursday also pushed their way into Austria after waiting for hours to cross.

Alex Tsipras expressed "endless grief" at the latest tragedies, saying they had left Europe shamed.

The bulk of the refugees came from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Eleven children were among those who drowned after two boats carrying refugees from Turkey to Greece sank in the Aegean Sea overnight, Greek port authorities told Al Jazeera on Friday.

Lesbos has borne the brunt of the refugee crisis in Greece, with more than 300,000 reaching the island this year - and the number of daily arrivals recently peaking at 7,500. The bodies of the woman and two children were spotted and recovered by a patrol boat and helicopter operated by the European border agency Frontex.

One of the vessels went down near the island of Rhodes, the other near the island of Kalymous.

Also Wednesday, Europe's maritime anti-people-smuggling mission, Operation Sophia, rescued about 1,000 migrants from six dinghies and a fishing boat off the Libyan coast, the Italian coastguard said. The weather conditions were bad, but the coast guard was quickly informed of the tragedy and the wreckage was located close to the port.

The Merchant Marine Ministry said 19 people were killed and 138 were rescued near the eastern Aegean Sea island of Kalymnos, as boatloads of Middle Eastern refugees and economic migrants try to reach the Greek islands in rough seas. Though Turkey has elections Sunday, refugees have not been a major topic of discussion.

Photographs on the service's Web site showed the survivors straddling the sides of the boat that remained afloat.

The survivors were taken to the southern port city of, where four ambulances and medical staff were waiting.

Near Spain, 35 migrants are still missing from another shipwreck coming from Morocco; six bodies have been found.

Meanwhile, the flow of migrants trying to reach Europe via the Russian Arctic slowed dramatically Thursday, partly due to a shortage of bicycles to cross the border, a source who deals with them told Reuters. It argues that those trying to reach Europe should be registered in camps in Turkey, then flown directly to host countries under the EU's relocation program, to spare them the sea voyage.

A German man suspected of kidnapping and killing a four-year-old Bosnian refugee has admitted to murdering another child, police said on Friday.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras answers a question on migration, during the Prime Minister's Question Time at the parliament in Athens, Greece, October 30, 2015.

Most are heading for Germany, which is expecting up to a million asylum requests this year, prompting a backlash against German Chancellor Angela Merkel.