ATHENS, Sept 7, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - A four-year-old girl drowned during the rescue of over 60 asylum seekers in distress in Maltese waters, the Greek coastguard said Tuesday.

They said they had been notified by their Maltese counterpart to help airlift her.

She had been picked up with another 62 people by an Antigua-flagged cargo ship when their boat ran into trouble at sea.

The child and her mother were taken by a Greek navy helicopter to a hospital on Crete, where doctors pronounced her dead.

The cargo ship was also told to reroute. It moored south of Crete with the remaining asylum seekers, whose nationalities were not immediately known.