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.
The coastguard said a large rescue operation involving vessels and aircraft was underway south of Gavdos after the boat capsized shortly after midnight on Saturday.
In separate incidents on Saturday, a Malta-flagged cargo vessel rescued 47 migrants from a boat sailing about 40 nautical miles (74km) off Gavdos. In contrast, 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.
