At least seven died in Thursday wreck off Greek island

iStock [For illustration]

At least seven people died when a boat carrying migrants was shipwrecked off a Greek islet on Thursday and another 90 were rescued, Greek authorities said on Friday.

Greece's coastguard said it had completed an operation to rescue 90 people whose sailing boat ran aground on an islet north of the island of Antikythera in southern Greece.

Seven bodies were recovered and a search operation was continuing, it said.

Greece is one of the main routes into the European Union for migrants and refugees from Africa, the Middle East and beyond, though the flow has tapered off since 2015-2016, when more than a million people traversed the country to other EU states.

Thursday's wreck was the second in the Aegean Sea this week.

Overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday a boat thought to be carrying up to 50 people, also migrants, sank off the island of Folegandros, with dozens feared missing.

More from International

  • Macron appoints new Prime Minister amid political crisis

    French President Emmanuel Macron has named Francois Bayrou his third prime minister of 2024, tasking the veteran centrist with steering the country out of its second major political crisis in the last six months.

  • Blinken meets Erdogan over clashes in Syria

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Turkey on Thursday for talks focused on establishing stability in Syria after clashes between forces backed by the US and Turkey erupted in the north.

  • Israel kills at least 66 Palestinians in Gaza

    An Israeli strike killed at least 30 Palestinians and wounded 50 others who were sheltering in a post office in central Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll on Thursday in the enclave to 66. 

  • Israel, Palestinians explore Gaza truce with US envoy

    Israelis and Palestinians are signalling new efforts to forge a ceasefire deal, even a limited one, for the first time in a year that would pause the fighting in Gaza and return to Israel some of the hostages still held in the Palestinian enclave.

  • Biden pardons 39, commutes sentences of 1,500 others

    Outgoing US President Joe Biden said on Thursday he was pardoning 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes and commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 others who were serving long prison terms.