Three migrants dead as boat capsizes off Greek island of Gavdos

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ATHENS (Reuters) -Three migrants drowned when their wooden boat overturned off Greece’s southernmost island of Gavdos on Tuesday and the coast guard is still searching for people reported missing.

The people on board moved rapidly to one side of the boat as a vessel from the European Union border agency Frontex approached the boat, the coast guard said, causing it to capsize.

“Their movement to the left side resulted in water inflow and its overturning. Immediately the Frontex vessel’s crew launched life cushions … and a lifeboat,” the coast guard said in a statement.

Fifty-five people have been rescued, including one who is injured and in hospital on the nearby island of Crete.

Survivors said more people were in the boat when it capsized about 15 nautical miles (28 km) off Gavdos, a coast guard officer said. Four vessels and a Frontex aircraft were looking for survivors.

Greece was on the front line of a 2015-16 migration crisis when more than a million people from the Middle East and Africa crossed into Europe.

Numbers have fallen since but Crete and Gavdos, the two Aegean islands nearest the African coast, have seen a steep rise in migrant boats, mainly from Libya, reaching their shores over the past year. Deadly accidents remain common.

At least 42 migrants were missing and presumed dead after a rubber boat capsized off Libya’s coast last week, the International Organization for Migration said on Wednesday.

The European Commission said on Tuesday that Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Italy will be eligible for help in dealing with migratory pressures under a new EU mechanism when the bloc’s pact on migration and asylum comes into force in the middle of next year.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Yannis Souliotis; editing by Mark Heinrich and Ed Osmond)