At least nine killed, hundreds missing as another migrant boat sinks off Greek coast
In separate incident, Libya finds bodies of 117 migrants in the western port city of Zwara
Greek rescuers were searching for survivors on Friday after a migrant boat sank off the island of Crete, leaving at least nine people dead and hundreds missing.
Two helicopters, three ships and a coastguard vessel were searching the waters off the Greek island of Crete where the boat, believed to have come from Africa with hundreds of migrants on board, capsized.
“Until this point 340 [people] have been rescued and nine bodies have been recovered,” the Greek coastguard said in a statement, without giving details on the migrants’ nationalities.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) earlier said the vessel was “believed to have left Africa with at least 700 migrants on board”.
The total number of bodies retrieved until now is 117... 70 per cent of them were women plus six children.
In a separate incident, Libyan authorities said they had found the bodies of at least 117 migrants on the shore in the western Libyan town of Zwara – possibly from one of another three boats that capsized last week off the Libyan shores – and warned that the toll could rise.
