(ANSA-AFP) - ATHENS, 05 FEB - Three children and a woman were
killed Sunday after a boat carrying around 40 migrants from
Turkey sank off the Greek island of Leros, Greece's coastguard
said. Three rescue boats and a helicopter were continuing with
search operations but were being hampered by strong winds and
choppy seas after the migrants' inflatable boat sank in the
Mediterranean. A fisherman raised the alarm after discovering
the lifeless body of the woman floating at sea, according to
local press reports.
A total of 41 survivors were rescued, including six children
and two adults who were transferred to hospital in Leros, the
coastguard said. But doctors were unable to revive three of the
children hospitalised -- two boys aged about five and a girl of
four, Greece's Ana news agency reported. The dead woman was
around 20 years old, Ana said, adding that all the migrants
aboard were from Africa. "Unfortunately, once again we have
innocent victims who have lost their lives because of the
criminal behaviour of traffickers," Greece's Merchant Navy
Minister Yannis Plakiotakis said in a statement. The number of
migrants requiring rescue has risen as more attempt to reach
Greece from Turkish shores on shoddy and overcrowded vessels
despite the rough winter seas. In December, a two-month-old baby
died after a shipwreck off the Greek island of Lesbos. Some
2,246 people fleeing wars and poverty are known to have lost
their lives in the eastern Mediterranean since 2014, according
to statistics from the International Organization for Migration
(IOM).
str-mr/cw
/ (ANSA-AFP).
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Woman, 3 children die in migrant shipwreck off Greece
Total of 41 survivors rescued (6 children,2 adults in hospital)