Two boats and a delayed search
The Greek coast guard said 20 migrants were found dead off Crete between Sunday and the early hours of Monday, 9 November, on two separate boats. Eight bodies were recovered from one boat and 12 from the other, and about 40 people were rescued from the two vessels. Rescuers launched an emergency search late on Saturday, 7 November, after an alarm was raised, but strong winds kept them from working until the following day. Another boat sailing nearby picked up around 28 survivors and one body from the first vessel. The survivors and that body were transferred to a police vessel and taken to Crete, and during the night from Sunday to Monday the coast guard located the first boat and found seven more bodies on board.
- Emergency search launched for a boat after an alarm, hampered by strong winds
- Around 28 survivors and one body picked up by another boat and taken to Crete
- Coast guard locates the first boat and finds seven more bodies on board
- Moroccan-flagged container ship spots a boat about 15 nautical miles off Crete
- Coast guard reports 12 bodies and 18 survivors from that boat
- Count on that boat rises to 13 bodies, then 14 after one rescued person dies in hospital
The boat south of Crete
Early on Monday, a Moroccan-flagged container ship spotted a boat about 15 nautical miles, or 28 kilometres, off Crete and alerted the authorities. The coast guard first recovered 12 bodies from it, a count later raised to 13, and brought 18 survivors into the port of Agia Galini. Four survivors were taken to hospital, including a toddler, and one of them died there, which takes the total dead on that boat to 14. The coast guard said all 18 people rescued were Sudanese nationals.
Officials have not established what caused the deaths. They believe the boat had been at sea for days and struggled to reach the shore in strong winds. An unnamed local coast guard official described the condition of the survivors when they were found:
We found them (the survivors) shivering from the cold
Rescues and the wider route
The coast guard said it rescued 187 people in three other incidents off Crete on Monday, a later figure than the 105 people in three operations reported earlier that morning. Frontex aircraft and drones supported the search, and Frontex units recovered all 87 people from the two boats found to the south, bringing them to Kali Limenes. More than 22,000 of the 86,400 sea arrivals so far this year have landed in Crete. UN figures show more than 37,000 migrants have reached Greece in 2026, already more than the total for 2025. Frontex counted around 31,800 irregular crossings on the eastern Mediterranean route in the first three quarters of 2026.
Earlier, on Wednesday, 4 November, a 23-year-old Bangladeshi survivor told port police that 59 migrants were missing after a shipwreck off the island. Port police searched for them without result, the coast guard said.
Arrests and local protest
Two Sudanese nationals, aged 28 and 16, have been arrested, and other passengers identified them as the smugglers. A complaint was filed against them for illegal entry and for facilitating illegal entry by an organised group. Survivors said the boat left the Libyan coast on 3 or 4 November and that each passenger paid between 12,000 and 16,000 Libyan dinars, roughly 1,600 to 2,200 euros. A protest was held on Sunday against a planned temporary migrant shelter in the municipality of Athanatoi. The Greek government has announced plans to deal with the influx, including a temporary housing complex near Heraklion.