Three die, more missing after migrant boat capsizes off Greek island

Three people drowned and at least 12 were believed to be missing in a migrant shipwreck off the island of Mykonos, the Greek coast guard said on Friday.

The bodies of two women and a man were found during a search effort that began in the early hours of Friday after a boat capsized in the Aegean Sea off Mykonos, the coast guard said.

Two men, a Syrian and a Palestinian, were rescued, and according to their accounts a total of 17 people were on board the boat, a coast guard official said.

Four coast guard vessels and three helicopters have fanned out in a search and rescue mission, the official added.

Greece has long been one of the main entry points into the European Union for refugees and migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Most cross on inflatable boats from Turkey to outlying Greek islands, a short but perilous journey during which thousands have died.

Meanwhile a boat carrying about 500 migrants, including a newborn baby and pregnant women, has disappeared in the central Mediterranean, two charities said on Friday.

Alarm Phone, a group that picks up calls from migrant vessels in distress, said it lost contact with the boat on Wednesday morning.

At the time, the boat was adrift, with no working engine, in high seas about 320 km (200 miles) north of the Libyan port of Benghazi and more than 400 km away from Malta or Italy’s southern island of Sicily.

Italian NGO Emergency said on Thursday its Life Support ship and the Ocean Viking, another charity vessel, had unsuccessfully looked for the missing boat for 24 hours, but found no sign of any shipwreck.

A spokesperson for Emergency said on Friday the search was still on, adding that the migrants might have been picked up by another boat or may have managed to fix their engine and continue sailing towards Sicily.

The Italian Coast Guard reported on Thursday the rescue of 423 and 671 migrants in two separate operations in Italian search and rescue waters, and Alarm Phone said they were unrelated to the missing boat.

The Italian coast guard had no immediate comment.