Greek footballers stage pitch sit-in over migrant deaths

Athens: Second-division football players in Greece held a sit-in protest at the start of a game over the spiralling death toll among migrants trying to reach the European country by sea.

Players from rivals AEL Larissa and Acharnaikos sat on the field and observed two minutes of silence after kickoff in a game in the central city of Larissa.

AEL said in a statement that the protest was "in memory of the hundreds of children that perish every day because of the heinous apathy of the EU and Turkey about what is happening in the Aegean Sea."