Daily Times

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian police said on Wednesday they had recovered five more bodies from the waters off the southern state of Johor, a day after a boat carrying illegal migrants capsized in big waves.
Authorities launched a search on Tuesday after 13 bodies were spotted in the sea near the coastal town of Bandar Penawar. District police chief Rahmat Othman said the boat had been traveling from Indonesia’s Batam island and was believed to have been carrying up to 40 people.
“Some of the passengers managed to swim to safety, though it is unclear how many survived,” he said in a text message. The bodies of nine men and nine women had been taken to a hospital for a post-mortem. More bodies were expected to be found, Rahmat said. Indonesians travel to Malaysia to work in plantations and as domestic helpers. Meanwhile, six migrants including one child drowned when their vessel sank off a Greek island close to Turkey, the Greek coastguard said on Wednesday, as the perilous crossings towards Europe continue despite harsh winter conditions.
“One man managed to swim ashore from an estimated 10 people on board. The body of a young boy was washed ashore,” a Greek coastguard official said.
The sinking took place early on Wednesday north of the Ammoglossa cape of the island of Kos in the eastern Aegean Sea, close to the Turkish coast.
Three coastguard vessels, one military helicopter and two Frontex boats were searching for survivors.
“According to the survivor’s testimony, at least three migrants are missing,” the coastguard official said. More than 600,000 refugees and migrants fleeing Syria, Afghanistan and other war-torn countries arrived in Greece from Turkey last year, risking the short but dangerous sea crossing, often on inflatable rafts. Hundreds have drowned. At least 43 people, including 17 children, drowned when their boats capsized off two Greek islands near the Turkish coast last week, marking one of the deadliest sinkings for migrants risking the precarious route to Europe from Turkey.
On the other hand, Greece has neglected its obligations to the EU’s external borders during the migrant crisis, the European Commission said Wednesday, in a report which if adopted by member states would give Athens three months to comply.
The report comes with growing pressure on Athens to deal with the flow of migrants, with some fellow European Union states suggesting that Greece could be suspended from the Schengen passport-free area.
“The draft report concludes that Greece seriously neglected its obligations and that there are serious deficiencies occurring out of border controls that must be overcome,” commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis told a press conference.
The report is based on an evaluation mission which went in November to the Greek-Turkish land border and several islands in the Aegean Sea — the main landing point for the one million migrants who arrived in Europe in 2015. Dombrovskis said the report found that there was a failure to do sufficient registering and fingerprints of migrants who have entered Greece from Turkey, the main gateway for refugees fleeing war in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.