Story highlights 144 people rescued, spokeswoman says 
 
 Boats sank near two Greek islands close to Turkey 
 
 (CNN) Twenty-two people died Friday when two boats sank in the eastern Aegean Sea, a spokeswoman for the Hellenic Coastguards told CNN.
– Twenty-two migrants—many of them children—drowned in two boat accidents Thursday and Friday in Greece's Aegean Sea, the BBC reports. According to NBC News, the fatal shipwrecks are part of a particularly deadly three-day stretch in Greece, with more than 50 migrants and refugees dying in the Aegean Sea. The worst accident came shortly before midnight Thursday, when 19 migrants were killed and another 138 rescued when their boat broke up near the Greek island of Kalymnos. A second accident Friday near the Greek island of Rhodes left at least three dead, CNN reports. Greek prime minister Alex Tsipras says he's ashamed of the response to the migrant crisis from European leaders, who need to stop passing off responsibility while people die, the BBC reports. Another 29 migrants drowned off the coast of Lesbos late Wednesday, according to the AP. Tsipras accused European leaders of crying "crocodile tears" for the migrant and refugee children drowning in Greek waters, NBC reports. "The waves of the Aegean are not just washing up dead refugees, dead children, but [also] the very civilization of Europe," he says. According to the BBC, the UN estimates 700,000 migrants—most of them refugees from the war in Syria—have crossed into Europe by boat this year.