Five dead when boat carrying migrants, including Pakistanis, capsizes off Greek island

• Witnesses say many are still missing as search operations continue.
• Rescued migrants were taken to the island of Crete: Coast Guard.
• Italian frigate, navy aircraft searching area after boat tragedy.

At least five migrants drowned when their wooden boat capsized off the southern Greek island of Gavdos, the coast guard said Saturday, and witnesses said many were still missing as search operations continued.

So far 39 men – most of them from Pakistan – have been rescued by cargo ships sailing in the area. They have been taken to the island of Crete, the coast guard said, adding that the number of missing has not yet been confirmed.

Coastguard vessels, merchant ships, an Italian frigate and navy aircraft have been searching the area since Greek authorities were alerted to the incident on Friday night.

In separate incidents on Saturday, a Maltese-flagged cargo ship rescued 47 migrants from a vessel sailing about 40 nautical miles off Gavdos, while a tanker rescued another 88 migrants about 28 nautical miles from the tiny island in southern Greece.

According to initial reports, Coast Guard officials believe the vessels left Libya together.

Greece was a favored gateway to the European Union for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia in 2015-2016, when nearly 1 million people disembarked on its islands, mostly via inflatable boats.

Incidents of migrant boats and shipwrecks off Crete and its tiny neighbor Gavdos, which are relatively isolated in the central Mediterranean, have increased over the past year.

In 2023, hundreds of migrants drowned when an overcrowded ship capsized and sank in international waters off the southwestern Greek coastal city of Pylos. It was one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea.