Greece says woman dies after migrant boat capsizes off Kos island

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece has recovered the body of a woman and rescued 15 migrants from the sea after their boat capsized off the island of Kos in the eastern Aegean Sea on Friday, its coastguard said.

In a separate incident on Friday, the coastguard rescued 78 migrants from a wooden boat sailing some 23 nautical miles off the tiny island of Gavdos in Greece's south.

The migrants are now being taken to the neighbouring island of Crete, a coastguard official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

It was not immediately clear what happened to the boat.

Greece was a favoured gateway to the European Union for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia in 2015-2016, when nearly 1 million people landed on its islands, mostly via inflatable dinghies.

The flow of people dropped off before resurging last year.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Stephen Coates)