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Overcrowded and rusted: The ship was towed by two fishing boats under the supervision of the Navy
Photo: STR/AFP
A rescue operation southwest of Crete has presented Greece's coastguard with challenges.
Hundreds of migrants were in distress there that night.
It took hours to recover the ship because of strong winds in the region and the boat with the migrants on board was in danger of capsizing.
The damaged ship was finally towed by two fishing boats under the supervision of the Navy, which had also responded to the emergency call.
Images from state television showed a rusty, completely overcrowded boat with people crowded on the deck.
The migrants were taken to the port of Paleochora in southwest Crete;
they are said to come mainly from Pakistan and Syria, and there were numerous children on board, it said.
The asylum seekers are still on board, a spokeswoman for the Greek coast guard said on Tuesday.
According to a report by broadcaster ERT, 430 people were on board the fishing boat.
It is now anchored in the port of the small town of Paleochora.
A Coast Guard spokeswoman said the 911 call said there were 400 to 500 people on the boat.
Due to increased patrols in the Aegean by the Greek Coast Guard and the EU border protection agency Frontex, smugglers are increasingly using the longer and more dangerous route south of Crete to reach the European Union.
The migrants take significantly higher risks when crossing in boats that are mostly hardly seaworthy.
Smugglers repeatedly use ancient, barely seaworthy boats to bring migrants from Turkey and countries like Syria and Lebanon past Crete directly to Italy.
According to the Greek Coast Guard, machine damage or other problems often occur on the long journey.
It is unclear how many boats have sunk in this way this year.
It is estimated that the number of drowned and missing migrants in the eastern Mediterranean has exceeded 300 since the beginning of the year, more than doubling compared to the previous year.
According to statistics from the UN refugee agency, a total of 115 people died in 2021 or could not be found.
On October 11, at least 30 refugees died when their two boats sank off the islands of Lesvos and Kytheria.
In early November, the coast guard recovered 21 bodies after two other refugee boats sank off the islands of Euboea and Samos.
Dozens more people have been missing since then.
asc/dpa/AFP