ATHENS: Four people died on Thursday when a migrant boat sank in the Aegean Sea, Greece`s coastguard said, in the latest drowning involving asylum seekers.

The coastguard said it had recovered the bodies near the island of Samos, where another similar incident occurred on Monday.

Another 16 people were rescued and a search for survivors is underway, it said.

Two separate incidents occurred on Monday near Samos and Lesbos in which at least nine asylum seekers died, including sixminors and two women.

Greece has seen a 25 percentincrease this year in the number of people fleeing war and poverty, with a 30pc increase alone to Rhodes and the southeast Aegean, according to the migration ministry.

Several similar incidents have occurred in past weeks, the last in early November when four people died near the island of Rhodes.

In late October, two people died near the island of Samos. Four more, including two infants, were lost near the island of Kos a few days earlier.-AFP