MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the Proto Thema newspaper, some 700 migrants were aboard the boat, when it started to drown about 70 nautical miles south of Crete.
The newspaper added that the rescue operation was underway and some 250 migrants had already been rescued by the coast guard of Greece.
Europe has been beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their crisis-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa to escape violence and poverty. The majority of them cross the Mediterranean Sea and arrive in the European Union using southern EU nations as transit points.
According to the International Organization for Migration, at least 205,000 migrants arrived in Europe by sea, while more than 2,400 died or went missing on their way.
