More than 700 people, most fleeing Syria, were disembarking Thursday on the Greek island of Crete after a harrowing journey on a smuggling ship that which broke down in gale-force winds while trying to reach Europe.
The Baris cargo ship lost engine power Tuesday in international waters off Crete, and reached the coastal town of Ierapetra after being slowly towed for 40 hours by a Greek navy frigate.
Authorities said its passengers include many Syrians — with a large number of women and children — seeking safety and a better life in Europe, and are exhausted but overall in good health.
As dozens of Ierapetra residents looked on from behind a police cordon, the coast guard started the disembarkation with women and small children who received preliminary care and food before being taken to temporary shelter at a basketball arena.
It is one of the largest single crossings of its kind in recent years. Tens of thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in African and the Middle East risk the journey to Europe every year, paying smuggling gangs to transport them in usually unseaworthy craft ranging from dinghies to aging rust-buckets. Most end up in Italy.
According to the latest figures from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, at least 3,000 people have drowned or disappeared trying to make the trip this year — almost 2% of the estimated total of 165,000 to attempt the journey.
The 77-meter (250-foot) cargo ship lost power the same day Pope Francis called on European governments to do a better job of welcoming migrants in speeches to the European Parliament and Council of Europe. Francis said “we cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast cemetery!”
The mayor of Ierapetra, a town of 16,000 people on a wide, open bay overlooked by jagged hills, said he sympathised with the migrants. But stretched local authorities couldn’t offer them shelter indefinitely, Theodossis Kaladzakis said.
“Ierapetra can look after these people for a week, but afterward, unfortunately, we simply won’t have that ability,” he said. “It’s not that we don’t want to. We just can’t.”
Doctors have conducted preliminary health checks and polio vaccinations for children from Syria, where the disease has made a comeback, senior Greek public health official Panayiotis Efstathiou said. Kurds, Afghans and Palestinians were also aboard the ship, which originated in Antalya, Turkey, Efstathiou told The Associated Press.
A pregnant woman, who was hemorrhaging, was airlifted to a hospital Wednesday, but there were otherwise no reports of serious health problems aboard the Baris. Rumors of armed men aboard the vessel proved unfounded, the coast guard said.
Efstathiou said the Syrians will receive refugee status and be released, while other passengers deemed to be in Greece illegally will be interned pending deportation.
A UNHCR spokeswoman in Athens said more than 99% of Syrians reaching Greece eventually gain refugee status in a lengthy and cumbersome process.
“There are people who have to visit application centers, which can handle very few people a day, 10-15 times,” she said. “And there should be a mechanism for their integration, because now people complete the refugee process and then end up in the street.”