The Greek and Turkish coast guards are searching for two missing people from two unrelated accidents.
The two boats carrying refugees sank into the narrow waters between Torkiye and Greece’s island of Lesbos, but at least 16 people have been killed, officials from both countries.
The boat accident that carried around 66 people together happened several hours apart on Thursday, with authorities on either side not aware of rescue operations from other countries.
On the Greek side, the country’s coast guard came across a small dinghy about 5 metres (5.5 yards) long, where one of the patrol boats was covered in water, rescued 23 people and rescued 11 minors, eight women and four women from a total of 31 reported passengers.
Authorities recovered the bodies of seven women, two boys, one girl and one man after search and rescue operations, including a helicopter, a Coast Guard ship and the FrontX-Europe Border Agency.
The Greek coast guard said rescuers were still searching for a young girl who was reportedly missing by survivors on Thursday evening.
One survivor, identified only as a 20-year-old man, was arrested on suspicion of being a smuggler of people as other passengers allegedly identified him as piloting a dinghy, Coast Guard said.
In Turkiye, authorities in the northwest Canaccare province said the coast guards sought emergency assistance from the boat early Thursday morning, rescuing 25 people after deploying three boats and helicopters.
The statement said nine bodies had recovered and the search for missing persons continued. Turkish media said the survivors were taken to a hospital in Torkie.
Shipwrecks are very common on short but dangerous routes between the Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands Samos, Rhodes and Lesbo.
The Greek government has removed cracks with increasing number of patrols at sea, and many smuggling rings have shifted operations south to transport people from Africa’s north coast to southern Greece using larger boats.
Last year, more than 54,000 people used what became known as the Eastern Mediterranean route towards Greece, and more than 7,700 people crossed a small land border with Greece’s Torkie, according to UN figures.
A total of 125 people were reported dead or missing.
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