The victim was found off the island of Naxos and the authorities estimated late on Saturday that the child, who was 85 centimeters tall, was about three years old.

The body will be taken to Piraeus, a port in the capital Athens, for forensic examination.

On Thursday, four other bodies belonging to a man, a woman and two younger girls were found, three off Naxos and one off the nearby island of Paros.

The accidents in December

It was on December 22 that the first accident occurred.

Then 12 people were rescued from an inflatable boat, off the island of Folegandros southeast of Athens, where all are believed to have been from Iraq.

Three drowned men were found, but survivors say at least 17 others are missing from that incident.

Two days later, 41 people were rescued after a sailboat with about 80 migrants capsized northwest of Paros.

Over one hundred thousand asylum seekers crossed the Mediterranean in 2021

As Greece intensifies its patrols off its eastern Aegean islands, near the Turkish coast, smugglers based in Turkey have increasingly packed yachts with migrants and refugees to head for Italy.

In 2021, more than 116,000 asylum seekers crossed the Mediterranean to reach EU countries, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR.

The agency said 55 percent traveled illegally to Italy, 35 percent to Spain and seven percent to Greece, while the rest were on their way to Malta and Cyprus.