The Greek Coast Guard announced on Tuesday that a rescue operation, made difficult by strong winds, was underway for a fishing boat with up to 500 migrants on board, off the Greek island of Crete.
“The distress call spoke of 400 to 500 people on board,” a coast guard spokeswoman told AFP.
“We can see the boat. She is drifting. there are a large number of people on board,” she continued.
The Coast Guard said it received the distress call overnight Monday to Tuesday after midnight.
Two cargo ships, an oil tanker and two Italian fishing boats were nearby to lend assistance, they added.
Due to increased patrols by the Greek Coast Guard and the European border surveillance agency Frontex in the Aegean Sea, migrant smugglers now take a longer and more perilous route south of Crete to enter the Union European.
“Eighty percent of flows from Turkey go directly to Italy,” Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi told Skai TV last week.
Human tragedies are on the increase due to the risks taken by migrants who board makeshift boats on stormy or even raging seas in autumn and winter.
On October 11, at least thirty people died in two shipwrecks off the islands of Lesbos and Kythera. During this last shipwreck which killed at least eight people, dozens of survivors, mainly from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, stranded at the foot of a cliff, were hoisted by the rescuers with a winch.
In early November, more than 21 people died and dozens were missing in two simultaneous shipwrecks off the islands of Samos and Euboea.
According to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 299 people have died or gone missing in the Eastern Mediterranean since the beginning of 2022 so far compared to 111 in total last year.
Greece, Italy and Spain are among the main countries of arrival for migrants from Africa and the Middle East wishing to reach the European Union.
In the first nine months of this year, Greece saw an 80% increase in the number of migrant arrivals from neighboring Turkey compared to the same period in 2021, according to official data.
The Greek Coast Guard reported the rescue of around 1,500 people compared to less than 600 last year, according to official data.
Since the beginning of the year, 1,891 people trying to reach Europe have disappeared in the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).