Greece’s public broadcaster ERT said on Monday that at least twenty migrants had died and 133 others were rescued in a string of boat emergencies south of Crete, turning the island’s southern approaches into the day’s deadliest stretch of the Mediterranean migration corridor.
In the latest incident, ERT reported, a Morocco-flagged container ship spotted a overcrowded boat about fifteen nautical miles southeast of Kaloi Limenes. A Hellenic Coast Guard vessel took eighteen survivors and twelve bodies to shore; one rescued person later died in hospital, bringing that vessel’s death toll to at least thirteen, according to statements relayed by international agencies. Greek officials said the boat may have been at sea for days in heavy wind before it was found.
Weekend rescue turned recovery operation
Separately, the coast guard had answered a distress call late Saturday south of Crete. Crews initially pulled twenty-eight Sudanese nationals from one boat and recovered a body; strong weather blocked a full search until Monday, when seven more bodies were found onboard the same vessel. Two people remained missing, authorities said.
Maritime police identified two Sudanese men, one of them sixteen years old, as suspected smugglers after survivors pointed them out, according to reports from the scene. French agency AFP and Greek officials described the weekend seas as difficult, with winds complicating both the rescue and the later recovery.
Frontex spots more boats still moving north
While those cases were unfolding, the European Union border agency Frontex used aircraft and drones to locate additional craft. ERT said boats carrying about forty-seven and forty people were taken toward ports on Crete’s southern coast, and other Greek statements put the number of people plucked from three additional vessels on Monday morning at more than 180.
Al Jazeera and Reuters quoted coast guard officials who said survivors from Monday’s first rescue were cold and exhausted. Nationalities were still being logged; Greek statements confirmed Sudanese nationals among those taken from the weekend boat.
Why Crete keeps drawing traffic
The cluster of deaths lands on an island that has quietly become a major gateway. The European Commission’s annual asylum and migration report, released Friday, said illegal border crossings into Greece fell twenty-three percent in the year through June compared with the prior twelve months, yet arrivals on Crete jumped 105 percent to roughly 21,000 — nearly half of all migrant landings in the country. Most boats on the eastern Mediterranean route continue to depart Libya and Türkiye, the report said.
Greek migration policy did not shift overnight because of Monday’s toll, but rescue coordinators now face overlapping emergencies: bodies still being counted from one hull, missing passengers from another, and fresh sightings from Frontex of boats that have not yet reached port. Athens has not published a single consolidated death toll across every incident, and ship identities remained unconfirmed in several statements. What is clear is the arithmetic ERT broadcast — twenty dead, 133 saved — and the longer trend that keeps sending more traffic toward Crete even as overall Greek crossings ease.