Migrants drown en route to Greece

  • 04/11/2017
Tens of thousands of migrants brave the Mediterranean every year.
Tens of thousands of migrants brave the Mediterranean every year. Photo credit: AAP

Three people have drowned, at least six are missing and scores of others have been rescued in three separate incidents of migrants trying to reach Greece across the Aegean Sea.

Greek authorities recovered the body of a woman early on Friday and searched for more people missing after a wooden boat carrying migrants sank off Kalymnos island, close to the Turkish coast.

Fifteen people, 10 men, four women and a child, were rescued, and Greek coastguard vessels were searching for another six to eight people missing, a Greek coastguard official says.

The Turkish coastguard says it recovered another two bodies on its side of the maritime border and the boat was carrying 27 people.

The departure point of the boat and the nationality of those on board was not immediately clear.

Separately, Greece rescued 127 migrants and refugees off Chios Island on board two boats in distress earlier on Friday, the coastguard says.

Arrivals of refugees and migrants to Greece, which shares a long sea border with Turkey, have increased in recent months, but not on the scale of mass arrivals in 2015.

Nearly 148,100 refugees and migrants have crossed to Greece from Turkey this year, a fraction of the nearly 1 million arrivals in 2015.

Reuters