Greek coastguard launches search operation to find dozens of missing migrants with assistance from an Italian frigate, helicopters.
Five people have died after a migrant boat sank off the Greek island of Gavdos, south of Crete, according to Greece’s coastguard, with 40 others reported missing and 39 rescued.
A large rescue operation involving vessels and aircraft was under way south of Gavdos after the boat capsized shortly after midnight on Saturday, the coastguard said.
In separate incidents on Saturday, a Malta-flagged cargo vessel rescued 47 migrants from a boat sailing about 40 nautical miles (74km) off Gavdos, while a tanker rescued another 88 people about 28 nautical miles (52km) off the island.
According to initial information, coastguard officials believe the boats left together from Libya.
Greece received nearly one million migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia in 2015-2016, most of whom took the dangerous route of crossing the sea on inflatable dinghies.
Similar shipwrecks off Crete and Gavdos, which are relatively isolated in the central Mediterranean, have increased over the past year.
According to the Ministry of Migration, Greece has seen a 25-percent increase this year in the number of people entering, fleeing war and poverty, with a 30-percent increase to Rhodes and the southeast Aegean.
Previous accidents
Several similar deadly accidents have struck in recent weeks.
In late November, eight people, six of them minors, died north of the island of Samos, on a route frequently used by people-smugglers.
According to United Nations statistics, which are based largely on survivor accounts, 1,536 people have died or gone missing and are presumed dead in the central Mediterranean so far this year.
The International Organization for Migration said more than 30,309 refugees have died in the Mediterranean in the past decade, including more than 3,000 last year.
