Vessels carrying migrants sink

Rescuers hauled traumatised shipwreck survivors up a sheer cliff by rope yesterday, after two boats carrying hundreds of migrants capsized in the Aegean Sea, leaving 21 dead. Many other asylum seekers were still missing after the vessels sank hundreds of kilometres apart — one off the Greek island of Lesbos, near Turkey, and the other off Kythira, an island in the far south of Greece, off the Peloponnese peninsula. The dinghy that sank off Kythira prompted a dramatic nighttime rescue, with firefighters and locals pulling people to safety one by one as they clung to a rocky outcrop at the base of the cliff. The bodies of at least four people were seen floating in the water, along with broken wreckage, after the vessel hit rocks and sank. Officials said 80 people from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan had been rescued, while a search continued for about 11 still believed to be missing.