Crete: 142 migrants within a few hours

Three separate incidents involving migrants were recorded in southern Crete within a few hours on the morning of Thursday 20 August, with a total of 142 people either reaching the island or being rescued at sea. The third and most recent occurred at the spot known as Alatsomouri, near Goudouras in the Municipality of Sitia, where a boat carrying 55 foreign nationals reached the rocky coastline, according to neakriti.gr and politica.gr. Those on board disembarked and climbed over the rocks in order to reach a safe point on land. Officers of the Ierapetra Port Authority, which has operational responsibility for that stretch of the Municipality of Sitia as well, were mobilised at the scene. The 55 were to board a Coast Guard vessel and be taken to the port of Ierapetra and from there to the old primary school at Makrylia, where the prescribed reception and registration procedures are completed.

The two earlier incidents were centred on southern Heraklion. The first occurred early in the morning at Loutra beach, where 39 people were found. Among them, according to the information made public, were 27 nationals of Sudan, including one woman and one minor, as well as 12 nationals of Bangladesh; they were taken to Heraklion for the completion of the procedures. Shortly afterwards came a second incident, this time out at sea, in an area 37 nautical miles south-east of Kaloi Limenes, where the Coast Guard carried out a rescue operation for around 48 people who were heading for Kaloi Limenes. Among those rescued were one woman and one adolescent. All were taken to the old freight terminal at the port of Heraklion and their transfer to Reception and Identification Centres was subsequently arranged.

The repetition of such incidents on a daily basis is changing the reality for the local communities of the south. Goudouras, Makrylia and Kaloi Limenes are small settlements with limited infrastructure, which are being called on to act as a first reception point without having been designed for it. Operational responsibility is shared between port authorities that are a long distance apart, while the temporary accommodation spaces are improvised, such as the old school at Makrylia and the old freight terminal at the port of Heraklion. Wednesday 19 August had already seen the rescue of 46 people south of Gavdos, which shows that the pressure is not confined to one point of the southern coast but shifts along it.

What matters in the coming hours is practical: completing the registration procedures and moving people to reception facilities, so that the temporary spaces are relieved. It has not been announced whether any arrests were made for people smuggling in the day’s incidents, nor whether anyone needed medical care. The figures given initially are also provisional and are often revised after the official count by the port authorities. More from the area on the Lasithi page.