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Another Day, Another Migrant Tragedy: Hundreds May Have Died off Crete

Summer in the Mediterranean brings calmer seas, but heavily laden boats still capsize and sink, killing hundreds of people who are trying to get to Europe.
An archive image showing migrants arriving at Ierapetra, on Crete Island, Greece, in November 2014. Photo by Stefanos Rapanis/EPA

Hundreds of migrants may have died on a boat that sunkoff the coast of Crete on Friday, in the latest tragedy to hit refugees and undocumented migrants trying to reach Europe.

The International Organization for Migration said 700 people were believed to have been on board a boat that sunk, and warned many could still be in the water, about 75 nautical miles or 140 kilometers off southern Crete. The area falls under Egypt's jurisdiction, but Greek authorities are conducting rescue operations.

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The Greek coast guard said four bodies had been recovered and 340 people were rescued by midday. There was no immediate information on the nationalities of the migrants or on the victims.

Greek media said the wooden boat the migrants were sailing in started taking in water. It was not immediately clear where the boat had sailed from, but IOM spokesman Joel Millman said it may have left from Alexandria in Egypt.

Related: More Than Two Dozen Bodies Wash Ashore in Libya as Migrant Crisis Continues to Escalate

Warm weather and calmer seas in the Mediterranean as summer begins have led to a surge in recent weeks in the number of people trying to cross to Italy from Libya, where people-smugglers operate with relative impunity. That route has become more popular as a crackdown by the European Union, and an agreement with Turkey to sends refugees back, have made the shorter journey via the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea much more difficult.

Boats on the longer journey from Libya to Italy risk being blown off course to islands such as Crete. Friday's incident was the third in a week involving migrant rescues or landings on the island. But the migrants on the boat that sank Friday may actually have come from Turkey rather than Libya.

"Crete is opening up as a kind of a new destination, we had several hundred (migrants and refugees) in the last three days. We understand that they sailed from Turkey, not from Africa, and that they fit the profile that we saw from the Balkan route most of the past twelve months, which is Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis," Mellman said. "Crete in the last three days has become extremely active, and today active could also be tragic," he added.

Related: African Migrants in Libya Face Kidnapping, Torture, and Robbery on Smuggling Route to Europe

Friday's sinking came after a week in which hundreds of migrants died in several separate incidents in the Mediterranean, mostly south of Sicily. At least 700 may have died at sea in the week that ended on May 29, the busiest for crossings from Libya towards Italy this year, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the UN refugee agency said on Sunday. Last week, European navies also rescued 14,000 people. Estimating how many people died is difficult; no one knows how many boarded a given boat, or what boats are at sea. Humanitarian and government officials have only testimony from survivors to go by.

"We will never know exact numbers," MSF said in a tweet after estimating that 900 had died during the week.