ATHENS, Nov 9 (Reuters) – Greece retrieved the bodies of 12 dead migrants from a boat sailing off the island of Crete early on Monday, its coast guard said.
It was not immediately clear how the migrants died.
The coast guard rescued another 18 people from the boat about 15 nautical miles off the port of Kaloi Limenes and dozens of others in two other incidents off Crete, a coast guard official said, adding that they will all be taken ashore.
Greece, for years a favoured gateway to Europe for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, was at the front line of Europe’s migration crisis in 2015-2016 and nearly 1 million people landed on its islands, mainly from Turkey.
Total migrant arrivals have ebbed since as Athens have bolstered sea and border patrols but sea arrivals from northeastern Libya of migrants trying to cross to Europe through Crete have surged.
(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Thomas Derpinghaus)
