Greek coast guard crews recovered the bodies of at least 20 migrants and rescued more than 130 others in a series of boat incidents south of the island of Crete, Greek authorities said on Monday.
The deadliest discovery came early on Monday, when a Morocco-flagged container ship spotted a migrant boat about 15 nautical miles (28 km) southeast of Kaloi Limenes, a small port on Crete’s southern coast. A coast guard vessel rescued 18 survivors and recovered 12 bodies from the boat. One of four survivors taken to hospital later died there, bringing the toll from that boat to 13.
It was not immediately clear what had caused the deaths. Greek authorities said the boat may have been at sea for days, struggling to reach shore in strong winds. “We found them shivering from the cold,” a local coast guard official told Reuters. The four taken to hospital included a toddler.
In a separate incident, eight bodies were found on a second boat south of Crete, and about 28 survivors, all Sudanese nationals, were picked up by a nearby vessel and transferred to the island. Two Sudanese citizens, one of them 16, were arrested after being identified by the survivors as suspected people smugglers.
The coast guard said more than 180 other people were found on three more boats heading across the Mediterranean from North Africa to Crete on Monday morning, the latest in a steady flow of vessels making the crossing from Libya. The European Union’s border agency, Frontex, helped locate two of the boats.
Crete has become one of the main entry points into the European Union for migrants departing from Libya. According to a European Commission report released on Friday, arrivals on Crete rose 105 per cent to around 21,000, even as illegal border crossings into Greece as a whole fell by 23 per cent in the year to June 2026. Migration minister Thanos Plevris said 1,700 people arrived from Libya in the first three days of November alone.
The overall death toll is still being updated as rescue operations continue, and figures reported by different agencies differ slightly.
Sources: Reuters — https://985theriver.com/2026/11/09/greece-recovers-12-dead-migrants-from-boat-off-of-crete-coast-guard-says/ ; Xinhua — https://peoplesdaily.pdnews.cn/world/er/30053527127 ; Associated Press — https://www.europesays.com/spain/114400/
