Greek coastguard finds body of migrant near half-sunken boat

[November 23, 2020]    ATHENS (Reuters) - The body of a migrant has been found near a half-sunken boat at a beach on the Aegean island of Rhodes, Greek authorities said on Monday.

Coastguard officers also found 13 people, all of them Syrian citizens, safe on the seashore. They later recovered the body of the man, an official said, without providing further details.

The coastguard was alerted early in the morning about the incident off Rhodes, opposite the Turkish coast.

Searches for more survivors continued.

Greece was the main gateway for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, many fleeing fighting in the Middle East, who streamed out of neighbouring Turkey in 2015 and 2016 until a deal with the European Union stemmed the flow.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Alison Williams)

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