Nearly 30 refugees have gone missing off the Greek island of Lesbos following an incident where a boat carrying the people sank.
The Greek Coast Guard said on Sunday that it pulled 20 people from the water after spotting them by a helicopter from the EU border agency, Frontex.
A Coast Guard spokeswoman told reporters that the saved refugees have “told rescuers there were 46 people in the inflatable dinghy in total,” increasing the number of the missing people to 26.
The Greek state news agency, ANA, reported that several children are among the missing.
Sunday’s incident is the latest in a string of boat sinking in the Aegean Sea that has cost hundreds of lives and it came a day after a five-year-old Syrian girl lost her life on the way from Turkey to Greece in the east of Lesbos.
The island has so far seen a heavy flooding of Syrian refugees fleeing war and execution in Syria, while many of them have died trying to cross the Aegean Sea.
Earlier in September, heart-wrenching photos of Aylan Kurdi, a little Syrian asylum seeker, lying dead face-down emerged and drew world’s attention to the plight of refugees. The three-year-old’s body was washed up on a beach in Turkey after the boat carrying his family to the Greek island of Kos sank.
More than 300,000 refugees have entered Greece so far in 2015, with most of them passing through to other European countries.
Over 2,600 refugees have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea since January, according to the latest figures released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Most of the asylum seekers who risk their lives to reach Europe are reportedly fleeing conflict-hit zones in Africa and the Middle East.
Editor's note: This article has been edited from the source material
