The Greek coastguard announced late Tuesday that it had recovered the bodies and rescued 27 migrants after their boat capsized off the island Kos, in the southeast Aegean sea.

It added that three coastguard vessels and a commercial vessel searched for additional people in the region.

The coastguard reported that in a separate incident, early Wednesday morning, a cargo vessel rescued 96 migrants whose boat had sunk off the tiny island Gavdos near Crete, in the Mediterranean Sea.

The company said that one of its ships, along with four other vessels and a helicopter, were searching for missing persons amid moderate winds.

In 2015-2016, Greece was on the frontlines of a migration crisis when over a million people mainly Syrian refugees crossed the sea from Turkey into the country, most often in inflatable dinghies.

Last year, the number of arrivals rose as migrants tried to take a new route south through Gavdos. (Reporting and editing by Christian Schmollinger; Angeliki Koutantou, Barbara Lewis and Antonis Pothitos)

(source: Reuters)