Twenty-six migrants or refugees are missing after a boat carrying them sank off the Greek island of Lesbos on Sunday, the coast guard said, Xinhua reported.
Twenty others were rescued, and a search and rescue operation was under way for the missing, according to a coastguard spokeswoman. The nationalities of the individuals were not immediately available.
"They (the migrants) told rescuers there were 46 people in the inflatable dinghy in total," she said.
A Lithuanian helicopter from the European border patrol agency Frontex spotted people in the sea off the southeastern coast of Lesbos early Sunday, according to the coast guard.
So far this year, hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly Syrians and Afghans fleeing conflict at home, have arrived in Greece from the nearby Turkish coast.