SULAIMANI (ESTA) — At least 16 people died after a migrant capsized in the Greek island of Paros in the central Aegean Sea late on Friday, in the third maritime involving migrants this week, the country’s coastguard said on Saturday.
Authorities scrambled a search and rescue operation overnight northwest of Paros, according to Reuters. Air and sea assets were deployed to the sea.
The country’s semi-official Athens News Agency said the bodies of 12 men, three women and an infant were recovered from the sea, Reuters reported.
Sixty-three people were rescued from the boat that overturned and sank near the island of Paros, AFP reported.
Eighty people were believed to have been on the vessel, which according to the coastguard was believed to have been headed for Italy from Turkey.
Five coast guard patrol boats, nine private vessels, a helicopter and a military transport plane continued the night-time search for more survivors, AP cited authorities as saying. Coastguard divers also participated.
Greece is one of the main routes into the European Union for migrants and refugees from Africa, the Middle East and beyond, though the flow has tapered off since 2015-2016, when more than a million people traversed the country to other EU states.
Giannis Plakiotakis, Greece’s shipping minister, said trafficking gangs were responsible for the disasters.
The gangs “are indifferent to human life, stacking dozens of people, without lifejackets, in vessels which do not conform to the most basic of safety standards,” he said in a written statement.
Earlier Friday, Greek authorities said they had recovered 11 bodies from the scene of another shipwreck, when a sailboat carrying migrants sank off an uninhabited islet in southern Greece on Thursday.
Another 90 people were rescued in that operation. The coastguard said initial information suggested those migrants had also been heading for Italy.
Overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday a boat thought to have been carrying up to 50 migrants sank off the island of Folegandros, with dozens feared missing.
*This story was updated at 10:16 a.m. EBL time
