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Four bodies have been found and 342 migrants rescued from a boat that capsized in the Mediterranean Sea early Friday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday.
Around 700 migrants are believed to have been aboard a wooden boat that began sinking early in the day.
“Early in the morning there was a boat about 25 meters that sent an SOS signal,” Christine Nikolaidou, spokeswoman for the IOM in Greece told VOA. “The location is about 70 miles [113 km] south of Crete. It started from the North of Africa – we have not yet confirmed the country.”
Five ships, including one from the Greek coast guard and a rescue helicopter, have been deployed to continue the search.
“The basic rescue operation is being held by Greek authorities so far,” Nikolaidou said, though she added that Egyptian forces would be cooperating to help in the rescue mission.
The migrants will initially be processed in Crete, but will likely not stay there due to their large number.
“According to previous experience, some of them are going to be transferred – maybe to Athens, maybe to camps...they’re not going to stay in Crete. Not all of them,” Nikolaidou said.
The nationalities of the migrants have not been confirmed, and their fate will be vastly different depending on whether they are refugees.
Those rescued who are migrants, as opposed to refugees, risk being sent back to their countries once they have been identified.
“But if it’s a refugee it's very different,” Nikolaidou said. Refugees may apply for asylum elsewhere in Europe.
Nigerians and Gambians are among the most common migrants making the journey from Libya to Greece, though an increasing number of Somalians and Eritreans are also fleeing.
Though most Syrian refugees enter Europe by land through Turkey, a boat carrying 65 Syrians, Afghans and Pakistanis was intercepted off the Greek coast last week.
An estimated 880 migrants and refugees died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea during the past week, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
It brings the total of lives lost in the first five months of 2016 to more than 2,500 people who attempted to reach Europe among many thousands. By contrast 1,855 people died in the same period of 2015. (VOA)
•Photo shows boat carrying migrants in trouble in the Mediterranean Sea.
