At least 16 people died when their boat overturned off the Greek island of Paros in the central Aegean Sea on Friday (local time), the third maritime disaster involving migrants this week, the country's coast guard said.
Authorities scrambled a search and rescue operation overnight northwest of Paros, with air and sea assets deployed to the area, the coast guard said.
Greece is one of the main routes into the European Union for migrants and refugees from Africa, the Middle East and beyond. The flow has tapered off since 2015-2016, when more than a million people traversed the country to other EU states.
The country's semi-official Athens News Agency said the bodies of 12 men, three women and an infant were recovered from the area.
Eighty people were believed to have been on the vessel, which according to the coast guard, was believed to have been headed for Italy from Turkey.
The circumstances under which the vessel capsized were unclear.
Giannis Plakiotakis, Greece's shipping minister, said trafficking gangs were responsible for the disasters.
The gangs are "indifferent to human life, stacking dozens of people, without life jackets, in vessels which do not conform to the most basic of safety standards", he said in a written statement.
Earlier on Friday, Greek authorities said they had recovered 11 bodies from the scene of another shipwreck, when a sailboat carrying migrants sank off an uninhabited islet in southern Greece on Thursday (local time).
Another 90 people were rescued in the operation. The coast guard said initial information suggested those migrants had also been heading for Italy.
Overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday (local time), a boat thought to have been carrying up to 50 migrants sank off the island of Folegandros, with dozens feared missing.
Reuters
