Greece: 21 dead, dozens missing, after 2 migrant ships sink

Kythira (Greece): Bodies floated amid splintered wreckage in the water off a Greek island on Thursday as the death toll from the sinking of two migrant boats rose to 21, with many still missing.

The boats went down hundreds of miles apart, in one case prompting a dramatic overnight rescue effort, as residents and firefighters pulled shipwrecked migrants to safety up steep cliffs.

The deadly incidents stoked tension between neighbours Greece and Turkey, which are locked in a heated dispute over migration and maritime boundaries.

The coast guard on the eastern island of Lesbos said 16 bodies of young African women and one young man were recovered there after a dinghy carrying about 40 people sank.

Ten women were rescued, while 13 other migrants were believed to be missing, coast guard officials said. The women who were rescued were in a full state of panic so we are still trying to work out what happened, coast guard spokesman Nikos Kokkalas told state television.

The women were all from African countries, aged 20 upward. ... There is a search on land as well as at sea and we hope that survivors made it to land.

The second rescue effort was launched several hundred kilometers (miles) to the west, off the island of Kythira, where a sailboat struck rocks and sank.

The bodies of at least four migrants were seen amid floating debris from the sailboat. The deaths would be officially recorded when the bodies were recovered, officials said. They added that 80 people, from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, had been rescued while a search continues for as many as 11 still believed to be missing.