A mammoth rescue operation was launched in Greece on Saturday to locate dozens of migrants reported missing after their boat capsized en route from Libya to Crete.
Nearly 12 hours after combat Aegean Hawk naval helicopters were first dispatched to the site of the shipwreck, 12.5 nautical miles south-west of the tiny isle of Gavdos, at least 39 survivors had been found, according to the Greek coastguard.
But as night fell officials said the death toll – registered at five by mid-afternoon – was also likely to rise. “As the hours pass, hopes fade,” said one. “We’ve had vessels and aircraft scouring the area all day.”
Most of the survivors, all Pakistani men, were transported by ship to the port of Chania in Crete although some were also airlifted by helicopter to the city’s hospital and admitted into intensive care.
A statement released by the Hellenic coastguard earlier on Saturday referred to survivors giving “conflicting accounts … of a bigger number of people aboard the boat which has not yet been confirmed”.
Greek emergency services were alerted shortly after midnight when the wooden boat began to sink as it approached Gavdos, Europe’s southernmost point.
Arrivals on the tiny island from Libya have soared by 400% since the year began, with the vast majority of would-be asylum seekers boarding crammed and often unseaworthy ships in the eastern Libyan port city of Tobruk.
Joining the search at the weekend alongside Hellenic coastguard patrol boats and combat helicopters were merchant vessels, an Italian frigate and aircraft operated by the EU border agency Frontex.
In separate incidents on Saturday that further underscored the popularity of the route, a Maltese–flagged cargo vessel rescued 47 migrants in a boat about 40 nautical miles south of Gavdos, while another 88 people spotted by a British-flagged tanker were also rescued in a second ship in the area.
Coastguard officials have not ruled out the possibility that the boats left Libya together. The three incidents had put coastguard services on “full alert” according to local media with at least 89 survivors from Egypt, Syria, Sudan and Bangladesh being transported by 7pm local time on buses to Heraklion, the Cretan capital.
Women and unaccompanied minors were among them. At least half were expected to be escorted on to a ferry bound for Piraeus, the country’s main port, from where they will be taken to a reception and identification centre near Athens.
As a frontier destination on Europe’s south-eastern border, Greece has seen a marked jump in the number of migrants arriving this year, although the increase still remains far removed from a decade ago when nearly one million people, mostly from Syria, landed on Aegean islands bound for other member states of the EU.
By 8 December, the United Nations Refugee agency, the UNHCR, estimated that 58,226 men, women and children had arrived in the country compared with a total of 48,720 in 2023.
More than 10,000 of the extra arrivals were registered at sea, with the Greek migration ministry reporting a 30% increase in landings in Rhodes and the southeast Aegean.
In recent weeks, a slate of fatal shipwrecks have been reported with eight migrants, including six children, drowning when a boat capsized off the Aegean isle of Samos on 25 November.
Three days later, in a second shipwreck off the island, a further four victims were recorded when two women and two children died.
In a statement prompted by the incidents, the UNHCR’s representative in Greece, Maria Clara Martin, called for the “root causes of flight” to be addressed.
“These repeated tragedies highlight the urgent need for long-term responses and safer and credible alternatives for those fleeing conflict, persecution, violence or gross human rights violations,” she said.
“We need serious efforts towards peace building, conflict resolution and addressing root causes of flight … counting lives lost at sea cannot become a norm.”
