Sailing in the June sunshine off the island of Lesbos, Greek fisherman Thanos Marmarinos remembers how he saved migrant women and children whose dinghy was breaking up in a gale one night 10 years ago.

Initially, when he received the midnight call, he was reluctant to leave his bed. The winds were bitterly cold, and he had already been on one rescue mission that evening — thousands of migrants were arriving in rickety boats every day at that time.

"You’ll feel guilty if they drown,” the 70-year-old recalled his wife saying.