During a laborious rescue operation, the Greek coastguard picked up about 430 migrants from an ailing fishing boat south of Crete on Tuesday. The people had sent a distress signal at night. The rescue took hours because of the strong winds in the region and the boat with the migrants on board was in danger of capsizing.
The damaged vessel was eventually towed by two fishing boats supervised by the Navy, which had also responded to the distress call. Footage from state television showed a rusty, completely overcrowded boat with people packed on deck.
The migrants were taken to the port of Paleochora in southwest Crete. They were said to be mainly from Pakistan and Syria, and there were numerous children on board, it said.
Tugboats use old boats
Smugglers repeatedly use old, barely seaworthy boats to bring migrants from Turkey and countries such as Syria and Lebanon directly to Italy via Crete. According to the Greek Coast Guard, machinery damage or other problems often occur during the long journey. It is unclear how many boats have sunk in this way this year.
It is estimated that the number of drowned and missing migrants in the eastern Mediterranean has passed 300 since the start of the year, more than doubling compared to the previous year. According to statistics from the UN Refugee Agency, a total of 115 people will be dead or untraceable in 2021.
Source: Krone
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