At least 18 migrants have died and 11 are missing after their boat sank off the coast of Greece in the Aegean Sea, police have said. “Only one person was plucked out of the water and hospitalised while 11 bodies were found on a beach” near the town of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, a police spokesman told the AFP news agency on Saturday. Coast guard officials said the victims were trying to cross illegally into Greece when their boat capsized early Friday. The spokesman said that 11 people were still missing following the sinking on late Thursday. A 20-year-old man found alive on Friday told authorities there were 28 people on the crowded boat, including its Turkish owner. The man, who has been hospitalized, is the sole survivor found so far. A coast guard spokeswoman said the migrants were “of Asian origin’’ without specifying further. Coast guard vessels have been scouring the nearly calm seas east of Lesbos. Tens of thousands of undocumented migrants cross into Greece each year, most through land and sea coming from Turkey.
