More than 300 migrants rescued in last 48 hours off Crete, Greek officials say

Published on 14/04/2026 - 19:18 GMT+2

Greek authorities person rescued implicit 300 migrants coming chiefly from Bangladesh, Egypt, Yemen and Sudan implicit the past 2 days, officials said connected Tuesday.

Nearly fractional of them were rescued connected Monday disconnected the land of Crete, the seashore defender said, adding that they were travelling connected astatine slightest 3 makeshift vessels.

Search operations continued connected Tuesday contempt beardown winds successful the area, they said.

A seashore defender authoritative said the migrants were being held by Cretan constabulary and would beryllium transferred to reception centres connected the Greek mainland.

Crete has go the main gateway for asylum seekers arriving chiefly from Tobruk successful eastbound Libya, a perilous crossing.

At the extremity of March, 22 radical died portion adrift successful the Mediterranean aft leaving from Libya and their bodies were thrown overboard, according to survivors who were rescued disconnected Crete.

According to information from the International Organisation for Migration, 559 radical died successful the Mediterranean betwixt January and February, compared with 287 for the aforesaid play past year.

In March, the European Parliament endorsed a large tightening of the bloc’s migration policy successful a bid to stem the crossings, approving the conception of “return hubs,” designed to nonstop migrants to non-EU 3rd countries, similar the UK’s Rwanda initiative.

Those proposals person been criticised by rights groups arsenic inhumane.

Due to the summation successful migrant arrivals successful Crete during the summertime tourer play past year, Greece suspended the asylum exertion process for 3 months, drafting disapproval from the UN and rights bodies.

Greece's blimpish authorities powerfully supports moves by the European Union to ace down connected amerciable migration, including the mounting up of "return hubs" extracurricular the bloc to location failed asylum seekers.

But tighter EU borders and migration deals with African countries person failed to trim the fig of departures from Africa, but simply temporarily diverted irregular routes, according to a report by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), seen by Euronews.

The ICMPD, an organisation that works for the EU and European governments to make migration policies, analysed the large mobility trends successful Sub-Saharan Africa, revealing that "recent patterns amusement that intensified controls bash not needfully trim wide mobility but alternatively redirect question towards alternative, often longer and riskier routes."

In caller years, the EU has expanded its migration partnerships with African countries specified arsenic Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, and Mauritania.

These agreements typically impact section authorities strengthening borderline controls to curb irregular departures toward Europe, portion the EU provides fiscal enactment and invests successful a wide scope of improvement and practice projects successful return.