Greece Hundreds of refugees reach Crete
Patrol boats from the Greek coastguard and the European border protection agency Frontex have picked up more than 650 migrants on the sea south of Crete over the past two days.
20.12.2025, 09:25
SDA
As the news channel ERTNews reported, citing the coast guard, several refugee boats were involved, including one with 545 people on board. The people were initially taken to the ports of small Cretan coastal towns. From there, they are to be distributed to refugee camps.
The weather in the region has been calm recently. This allowed the smugglers to send the boats towards Europe, according to the authorities. According to the report, Crete has already recorded almost 18,000 refugee arrivals this year - last year there were around 5,000 in total.
The boats usually set sail from the Libyan port of Tobruk. The 300-kilometre crossing is dangerous - just two weeks ago, dozens of people died when their boat capsized south of Crete.
