The Greek Coast Guard was searching for dozens of shipwrecked migrants on Wednesday August 10 after their boat sank off the island of Karpathos in the southeastern Aegean Sea, according to a statement from the Greek Coast Guard.
"
So far 29 people, Afghans, Iraqis and Iranians, have been rescued and the search continues because, according to their statements, between 20 and 50 other people were on the shipwrecked boat that sank
," a woman told AFP. head of the coastguard press office.
Search operation launched
The shipwrecked boat had sailed from the Turkish city Antalya, located on the nearby Turkish coast and had Italy as its destination, according to the same source.
Four boats that sailed in the area of the sinking, two coastguard patrol boats and a helicopter from the Greek Air Force participated in the search to find the missing migrants.
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The search was hampered by strong winds of 40 to 50 km / hour (7 on the Beaufort scale), according to the coastguard press release.
Several hundred people perish each year in the Aegean Sea, in the south-eastern Mediterranean, trying to cross to Greece from Turkey to northern Europe, according to the UN and NGOs.