Greek Coast Guard recovered on Sunday the corpses of three illegal migrants and rescued three survivors at the eastern Aegean Sea, local authorities said.

Local fishermen alerted authorities over the dead persons, while preliminary results of post mortem examination showed that they died of drowning over the past 48 hours, said the report.

A few hours earlier local authorities had rescued off the small island of Oinnousses between Chios and the Turkish shores three men of Middle Eastern origin who said that they tried to reach Chios from Turkey on a small boat on Thursday night.

The boat overturned and they swam for 10 hours to reach the Greek shores, they said.

It's unknown whether there were more illegal immigrants seeking to enter Greece.

In mid-December a boat carrying illegal migrants from Turkey to Greece sank off the nearby island of Lesvos and 22 people drowned, including children.

Groups of illegal immigrants, in particular from Africa and Asia, try to enter Greece each year from the borders with Turkey in order to reach other European Union countries and some of them have been drown in the attempt.