Key facts
- The Greek coastguard said it rescued 18 people from the sunken boat, all of them Sudanese nationals.
- Four survivors were taken to hospital, including a toddler, the coastguard said.
- Authorities said the cause of the deaths was not immediately clear; they believe the boat had been at sea for days and struggled to reach shore in strong winds.
- A Moroccan-flagged container ship spotted the migrants' boat about 15 nautical miles (28km) off Crete's coast.
- The Greek coastguard rescued another 187 people in three separate incidents off Greece on Monday.
- Greece's government has announced plans to open a temporary housing complex near the Cretan capital, Heraklion.
At least 13 people died after a boat carrying migrants sank off the coast of the Greek island of Crete, the coastguard said on November 9, 2026. The coastguard said it rescued 18 people, all Sudanese nationals. Four survivors were taken to hospital, including a toddler.
Authorities said it was not immediately clear what caused the deaths. They believe the boat had been at sea for days and had struggled to reach shore because of strong winds. A Moroccan-flagged container ship spotted the boat about 15 nautical miles (28km) off Crete's coast.
One unnamed coastguard official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity, that the survivors were "shivering from the cold".
Crete is one of several gateways for migrants trying to reach Europe from the Middle East and North Africa. More than 22,000 of the 86,400 sea arrivals to Greece so far this year landed in Crete alone. Greek authorities said about 1,700 migrants reached the island in the first three days of November.
The Greek coastguard rescued another 187 people in three separate incidents off the coast of Greece on Monday. More than 37,000 migrants have arrived in Greece so far this year, UN figures show, already surpassing the number who arrived in the entirety of 2025.
The Greek government has announced plans to deal with the influx, including opening a temporary housing complex near the Cretan capital, Heraklion. Greece was at the heart of Europe's migration crisis in 2015-16, when nearly a million people arrived on its islands, mostly from Turkey. Arrivals later fell as border controls tightened, but crossings from Libya have risen in recent years, particularly among people fleeing conflict in Sudan and seeking better economic opportunities from countries including Bangladesh.