Greek coast guards scoured for survivors in the Aegean Sea on Saturday after the latest in a series of migrant boat accidents that have killed at least 30 people in just days.

Athens, December 25 (RHC)-- Greek coast guards scoured for survivors in the Aegean Sea on Saturday after the latest in a series of migrant boat accidents that have killed at least 30 people in just days.

Late Friday, the coastguard found 16 bodies, including those of three women and a baby, and rescued 63 people from a boat that overturned and sank near the island of Paros.  According to those rescued, around 80 people had been on the vessel.  It’s believed they had been headed for Italy from Turkey, according to the coastguard.

Smugglers operating from Cesme and Bodrum on the Turkish coast are packing migrants in yachts to send them to Italy using new, more dangerous routes, according to the ERT television channel.  Three coast guard patrol boats, private vessels, a coast guard plane as well as divers searched for more survivors, officials said.  

The latest tragedy – the third since Wednesday – came amid high smuggler activity not seen in Greek waters in months.  Hours earlier, 11 bodies were recovered from another boat that ran aground on an islet north of the Greek island of Antikythera on Thursday evening.

Coast guard said on Saturday that two of the rescued migrants – both men suspected of being the smugglers – were arrested.

Overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, a boat thought to have been carrying up to 50 refugees sank off the island of Folegandros, with dozens feared missing.