Four migrants dead after shipwreck off Greek island of Lesbos

ATHENS (Reuters) -Four migrants died after their boat sank off the Greek island of Lesbos, Greece’s coastguard said on Tuesday after launching a search-and-rescue operation in the area.

So far, 34 migrants have been found safe ashore in the south of the island, a coastguard official said, adding that at least three vessels and one helicopter assisted the operation. Four bodies were recovered at sea.

Initial reports indicated that there were 38 people in total on the boat. The circumstances of the incident were unclear.

Greece was on the front line of a 2015-16 migration crisis when more than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa crossed into Europe.

Migrant flows subsequently ebbed. But the Mediterranean nation has recently toughened migration rules, following a resurgence of arrivals from Libya via the Greek islands of Crete and Gavdos.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Yannis Souliotis; editing bty Mark Heinrich)