The latest deadly incident involving a shipwrecked migrant boat took place southwest of the island of Gavdos in the early morning hours of Saturday, according to local media reports.
By daybreak Greek authorities had initially reported at least one confirmed fatality, but later in the day raised the figure to five. Additionally, dozens of people are possibly missing, with one number cited being 40. One man was airlifted to a hospital in the west Cretan city of Hania.
The incident took place roughly 12.5 nautical miles from the isle, which itself lies south of the large island of Crete in the Libyan Sea.
This specific “southern route”, with final destinations being EU member-states Greece or Italy, is now plied by migrant smuggling rings operating from the North African coast, especially in strife-plagued Libya. Passengers on such vessels, which are often unfit for voyage, usually pay smugglers thousands of euros in order to reach EU territory. In some cases, pilots of such vessels issue emergency calls for assistance when approaching European territory.
Another 37 occupants on the migrant boat were rescued by the Greek coast guard and transferred to a southern Crete harbor town. Statements by the latter claimed that roughly 80 people were onboard.
Finally, an even large group of third country nationals were located by a UK-flagged tanker some 28 nautical miles south of Gavdos and transported to Crete.
The deadly incident was one of three involving migrant-laden vessels in the same wider sea region over the past 24 to 48 hours, with a total of 124 people rescued from the vessels and transported to Greek territory. One of the responding vessels was a freighter, which reached a boat haphazardly sailing some 40 nautical miles south of Gavdos and carrying 47 third country nationals.
No information was initially given on the declared nationalities of the rescued groups of people, or from where the migrant boats set off.
Greece has found itself on the forefront of a major migration crisis over the past decade or so, with hundreds of thousands of third country nationals attempting to enter the country – mostly from neighboring Turkey, but more recently from North Africa – in a clandestine and often dangerous manner in order to file asylum requests towards achieving refugee status in an EU country, or to continue as undocumented migrants to other destinations in central and western Europe.
The Greek government this past week followed similar moves by other European governments and froze asylum applications by Syrian nationals, in the wake of the Assad regime’s collapse and the victory of rebel groups in that Mideast country.
