One dead, two missing as boat with 100 migrants sinks near Greece

At least one man has died and two were missing after a wooden boat carrying 100 migrants sank south of the small southern Greek island of Gavdos on Wednesday, Greece’s coast guard said.

A total of 97 people were rescued by a passing cargo ship and were being taken to the city of Heraklion on the island of Crete, authorities said.

The survivors were 50 men from Pakistan, 39 men and two women from Sudan, five men from Bangladesh and one from Somalia. The boat sank about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Gavdos, the coast guard said. Survivors reported that three men, from Pakistan and Sudan, were missing.

The body of one man was recovered while a search and rescue operation continued for the other two missing passengers. The reasons for the boat’s sinking were not immediately clear.

Recurring Migrant Disasters

The incident comes a day after two women and two children died off the eastern Greek island of Kos when a smuggling boat crossing from nearby Turkey capsized. Another 27 people were rescued.

Greece lies on a popular route into the European Union for people fleeing war and poverty in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, with tens of thousands heading to Greek islands, usually in smuggling boats from the nearby Turkish coast, or making the longer and more treacherous journey across the Mediterranean from north Africa.

By early October this year, more than 42,000 migrants were registered as having arrived in Greece, with the vast majority – more than 36,500 – arriving by sea, according to figures from the United Nations refugee agency.

Europe’s Ongoing Migration Challenge

On Tuesday, Greece’s deputy minister for migration, Sofia Voultepsi, warned that wars in the Middle East and Africa, combined with the effects of climate change, will put Europe under continuous long-term immigration pressure. Voultepsi also said a landmark European Union migration pact reached earlier this year is still lacking in practical terms, and called for a common EU-wide system for handling the deportations of those whose asylum claims are rejected.

The EU migration pact will take effect in mid-2026 following a new round of negotiations with the bloc’s 27 member states, which is expected to last about a year.

Voultepsi also expressed alarm at the growing number of refugees in Lebanon because of ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeting the militant group Hezbollah.

Elsewhere in Europe, an Italian navy ship docked at an Albanian port with the first group of 16 migrants intercepted in international waters. Their asylum applications will be processed in Albania instead of Italy under a five-year agreement between the two countries.

Italy remains the main European destination for irregular migration, with more than 52,000 arrivals so far in 2024.

In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk plans to suspend the right to asylum temporarily. The new migration policy was presented at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.