ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek authorities recovered the body of a man and rescued 39 migrants from the sea after their boat capsized off the southern island of Gavdos in the Mediterranean, the Greek Coast Guard said on Saturday.
Witnesses say many are still missing, and the Coast Guard has launched a search operation with the help of ships and aircraft since they were alerted to the incident on Friday evening.
In separate incidents on Saturday, a Maltese-flagged cargo ship rescued 47 migrants from a boat sailing about 40 nautical miles off Gavdos, while a tanker rescued another 88 migrants about 28 nautical miles off the small island in southern Greece.
According to preliminary information, Coast Guard officials believe that the two boats left together from Libya.
Greece was a preferred gateway into the European Union for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia in 2015-2016, when nearly a million people arrived on its islands, most of them via inflatable boats.
Incidents of migrant boats and shipwrecks have increased over the past year off the island of Crete and its small neighbour, Gavdos, which is relatively isolated in the central Mediterranean.
