Lesbos Island - (AFP) - Port police announced Wednesday that they had found the body of a child "in a state of advanced decomposition" on the southern coast of the Greek island of Lesbos, one of the main entry points into Europe for migrants from neighboring Turkey.

The body was found on "the coast of Ayios Ermogenes in the south of the island, and it was transferred to the hospital in Mytilene (the island's capital), where an autopsy will be performed," according to a coast guard statement.

The statement stated that 54 people were arrested on December 9 near these coasts, including a woman who said that her child had fallen into the water before they landed on the island.

A two-month-old baby was found dead on Friday in the same area when a rubber boat carrying migrants, mostly from Africa, capsized. 32 people were rescued and transported to Mytilene during operations by the Coast Guard.

Many migrants fleeing war and poverty risk their lives by trying to cross a few nautical miles between the Greek islands in the eastern Aegean Sea and Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean.

The International Organization for Migration reported that 368 people have died or gone missing in the eastern Mediterranean since the beginning of the year, compared to a total of 111 people in 2021.