About 150 migrants rescued from two sailboats off western Greece and in the Aegean Sea

About 150 migrants were rescued from overloaded sailboats provided by smugglers in two separate incidents Wednesday far off a western Greek island and off a Cycladic island near the Greek capital, the coast guard said.

In the first case, a group of 76 people was rescued from a yacht in distress 64 nautical miles (74 miles, 118 kilometers) southwest of the Ionian Sea island of Zakynthos in western Greece, a coast guard statement said. All were taken onto a passing Egyptian-flagged cargo ship, and there were no reports of anybody missing.

It was not immediately clear where the sailboat had set out from, but the area lies on the route often used by smuggling vessels carrying migrants from Turkey or northern Africa to Italy.

In the second incident, about 80 people were safely evacuated from a sailboat off Kythnos island, one of the Cyclades to the southeast of...