The coast guard of Athens, Greece, launched two rescue operations after a boat carrying dozens of migrants sank about 80 kilometers northwest of the Greek capital, this official said on Tuesday.
According to several international news agencies, the boat was carrying more than 60 people and at least nine have already been rescued.
The event took place in the Kafirea Strait, between the Greek islands of Euboea and Andros, and the boat sank at a time when winds of more than 60 kilometers per hour were recorded.
The ship will have departed from Izmir, off the coast of Turkey.
“One of our offshore patrols rescued nine men on an islet. These survivors said there were about 68 people on board,” a spokeswoman for the Athens coast guard told AFP.
The Spanish company EFE reports that this search operation, in which three boats and a helicopter are participating, is taking place in adverse conditions due to northerly winds with force 8 on the Beaufort scale.
At the same time, a similar operation was mounted near the island of Samos, also in the Aegean Sea, to find eight people presumed missing since Monday.
Four survivors said Monday that 12 people were aboard a canoe that capsized.
Greece has seen a surge in the number of migrant and refugee arrivals this year, most of whom set out from nearby Turkish shores in an attempt to escape war and poverty.
Shipwrecks, often fatal, are very common in this area.
At least 30 people died in October in two migrant boat wrecks in the Aegean Sea.
During the first eight months of the year, the Greek coast guard reported the rescue of some 1,500 people.
Greece, Italy and Spain are among the main countries of arrival for immigrants from Africa and the Middle East who want to reach the European Union.
Source: TSF
