Some 200 migrants reach Crete from Africa in a day
Around 200 migrants have reached the southern island of Crete in one day after making the dangerous sea crossing from northern Africa, authorities said Thursday.
All are believed to have departed from eastern Libya, after paying smuggling gangs to be ferried to Europe.
Together with the roughly 500 people reported having reached Crete by boat by Sunday, according to United Nations figures, this brings total arrivals on the island for this year to some 700 migrants. At least another 2,800 people entered Greece from Turkiye by land and sea over the same period.
Migration Minister Thanos Plevris expressed concern Thursday at the increase in arrivals from Libya since last year, and called for joint European Union action.
Speaking after a meeting of EU justice and internal affairs ministers in Brussels, Plevris also said he discussed potential plans for so-called return hubs for deported migrants to be set up outside the EU with colleagues from Germany, The Netherlands, Austria and Denmark. He said the ministers would revisit the idea – which he said could involve camps being built in Africa – in June.
The Coast Guard said the new migrants on Crete arrived in four boats Wednesday. In three cases, patrol boats, including from the EU’s Frontex border agency, and passing merchant ships were sent to rescue boatloads of people spotted up to 46 nautical miles southeast of Crete.
A total 136 people, almost all men, were taken off small vessels in distress. No injuries or missing people were reported. And another 63 men were found on a beach on the island of Gavdos, south of Crete, the Coast Guard said.
Kathimerini
