A dozen migrants missing after a shipwreck off Turkey

Published on : 07/23/2021 – 15:29

A dozen migrants were missing on Friday 23 July off Crete the day after their boat sank with 45 people on board, said the Greek coast guard and the Turkish Defense Ministry, which announced that it had launched relief operations.

Thirty-seven migrants, mostly from Syria and Iraq, were rescued in the evening by the Greek coast guard who continued their search despite high winds, Greek port police told AFP.

The boat sank in Greek waters bordering national and international waters, the same source said.

Research still in progress

On the Greek side, a Superpuma military helicopter is participating in the search with the help of coastguard vessels and a Greek tanker flying the Maltese flag.

Five people were taken by helicopter to the Greek island of Karpathos on Thursday evening, while thirty others, including a woman and a child, were transported to Ierapetra, on the south-eastern coast of Crete, a report said. AFP photographer.

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The Turkish coastguard announced that it had started the search “after receiving information” according to which the boat had sunk 260 kilometers from the Turkish seaside resort of Kas, in the southwest, the Turkish ministry said on Friday. the Defense in a press release.

According to the testimonies of the survivors, between 8 and 12 other people were on board the boat which sank 60 nautical miles south-east of Crete.

But the search for the missing are made difficult by a wind which strengthened on Friday morning and was gusting at 8 on the Beaufort scale. The survivors have all tested negative for the coronavirus, the emergency services said.

Turkey, a very busy migratory crossroads

Migrants often use Turkey as a gateway to European Union countries, mainly via Greece. Often relying on smugglers, they made perilous journeys on crowded boats.

The shipwrecks of makeshift boats are frequent when crossing the arm of the sea between Turkey and Greece. Last January, the body of a migrant was found after the sinking of a boat carrying 27 people off the island of Lesbos.

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But since 2020, the number of arrivals has dropped considerably after a security tightening by the Greek conservative government and restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus.

In 2016, Turkey signed an agreement with the EU to limit the flow of migrants to Europe in exchange for financial assistance of six billion euros. Turkey is currently hosting around 3.7 million Syrian refugees on its soil.

With AFP and Reuters