At least five dead as migrant boat capsizes in Greek waters | Greece

A mammoth save operation was begined in Greece on Saturday to discover dozens of migrants inestablished ignoreing after their boat capsized en route from Libya to Crete.

Ntimely 12 hours after combat Aegean Hawk naval helicselecters were first dispatched to the site of the shipwreck, 12.5 nautical miles south-west of the minuscule isle of Gavdos, at least 39 survivors had been create, according to the Greek coastdefend.

But as night fell officials shelp the death toll – sign uped at five by mid-afternoon on Saturday – was also probable to elevate. “As the hours pass, hopes fade,” shelp one. “We’ve had vessels and airproduce scouring the area all day.”

Most of the survivors, all Pakistani men, were carryed by ship to the port of Chania in Crete although some were also airlifted by helicselecter to the city’s hospital and acunderstandledgeted into intensive nurture.

A statement freed by the Hellenic coastdefend earlier on Saturday referred to survivors giving “struggleing accounts … of a bigger number of people aboard the boat which has not yet been verifyed”.

Greek aelevatency services were attentiveed unreasonableinutively after midnight when the wooden boat began to sink as it approached Gavdos, Europe’s southernmost point.

Arrivals on the minuscule island from Libya have soared by 400% since the year began, with the huge meaningfulity of would-be asylum seekers boarding crammed and frequently unseaworthy ships in the easerious Libyan port city of Tobruk.

Joining the search at the weekfinish alengthyside Hellenic coastdefend patrol boats and combat helicselecters were merchant vessels, an Italian frigate and airproduce rund by the EU border agency Frontex.

In split incidents on Saturday that further underscored the well-understandnity of the route, a Maltese–flagged cargo vessel saved 47 migrants in a boat about 40 nautical miles south of Gavdos, while another 88 people spotted by a British-flagged tanker were also saved in a second ship in the area.

Coastdefend officials have not ruled out the possibility that the boats left Libya together. The three incidents had put coastdefend services on “brimming attentive” according to local media with at least 89 survivors from Egypt, Syria, Sudan and Bancontentesh being carryed by 7pm local time on buses to Heraklion, the Cretan capital.

Women and unaccompanied unconvey inants were among them. At least half were foreseeed to be accompanyed on to a ferry bound for Piraeus, the country’s main port, from where they will be apshown to a reception and identification centre proximate Athens.

As a frontier destination on Europe’s south-easerious border, Greece has seen a labeled jump in the number of migrants arriving this year, although the incrrelieve still remains far erased from a decade ago when proximately 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, approximated that 58,226 men, women and children had get tod in the country appraised with a total of 48,720 in 2023.

More than 10,000 of the extra arrivals were sign uped at sea, with the Greek migration ministry inestablishing a 30% incrrelieve in landings in Rhodes and the southeast Aegean.

In recent weeks, a stardy of overweightal shipwrecks have been inestablished with eight migrants, including six children, drowning when a boat capsized off the Aegean isle of Samos on 25 November.

Three days tardyr, in a second shipwreck off the island, a further four victims were sign uped when two women and two children died.

In a statement prompted by the incidents, the UNHCR’s reconshort-termative in Greece, Maria Clara Martin, called for the “root causes of fairy” to be compriseressed.

“These repeated tragedies highairy the inspirent necessitate for lengthy-term responses and protectedr and credible alternatives for those escapeing struggle, persecution, arrangeility or gross human rights violations,” she shelp.

“We necessitate grave efforts towards peace produceing, struggle resolution and compriseressing root causes of fairy … counting lives lost at sea cannot become a norm.”