A man who fell into the sea from a cargo ship in the open seas outside Paphos was rescued on Saturday night, the JRCC said.

Five hours after it started a rescue operation, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) said the man was found alive and pulled out of the water.

At 8.45pm on Saturday, JRCC implemented the ED Nearchos plan to find the reported missing man who had fallen from the Panama flagged Nivin while it was sailing 100 nautical miles west of Paphos within the Nicosia FIR district.

The operation was carried out by a military helicopter on board which was a specialised nurse from the ambulance service.