At least one dead, scores rescued off Greek islands as arrivals rise

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ATHENS (Reuters) – One person drowned, at least six were missing and scores of other migrants were rescued by Greek authorities in three separate incidents in the Aegean Sea early Friday, the coastguard said.

Greek authorities recovered the body of a woman on Friday and searched for more people missing after a wooden boat carrying migrants sank off Kalymnos island.

Fifteen survivors of the sinking, including 10 men, four women and a child, were rescued, and Greek coastguard vessels were searching for another six to eight people missing, a Greek coastguard official said.

Separately, Greece rescued 127 migrants and refugees off Chios island on board two boats in distress earlier on Friday, the coastguard said.

Arrivals of refugees and migrants to Greece, which shares a long sea border with Turkey, have increased in recent months, but not on the scale of mass arrivals in 2015.

Nearly 148,100 refugees and migrants have crossed to Greece from Turkey this year – a fraction of the nearly 1 million arrivals in 2015 – but arrivals have increased in recent months.

An average 214 people arrived daily in September, compared with 156 in August and 87 in July, Greece’s migration minister, Yannis Mouzalas, said on Wednesday.

About 60,000 refugees and migrants, mostly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, have been stranded in Greece after border closures in the Balkans halted the onward journey many planned to take to central and western Europe.

Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou, editing by Larry King

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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