SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Seven people from the Kurdistan Region remain missing after a boat carrying migrants and refugees sank off the coast of Crete in Greece, a Kurdish watchdog said on Saturday.
The boat carried 45 migrants, mostly from Iraq and Syria, sank off the island of Crete on Thursday, according to Greek police.
Greek shipping ministry said a nearby vessel spotted the boat after it sent a distress signal and reported it started sinking some 60 nautical miles southeast off Crete, Reuters reported.
Lutka Foundation for Refugee and Displaced Affairs said 17 Kurds whose families had registered their names at the watchdog had been rescued from the vessel.
“Ten migrants remain missing,” it added, stating that two of them were from Egypt and another was an Iranian Kurdish migrant.
The seven others were people from the Kurdistan Region, it continued.
“The Lutka foundation, in cooperation with the deputy prime minister’s office, continues to follow up the case to assist those rescued and to find those who have gone missing,” it said.
On Friday, officials from Greece and Turkey said the two countries were searching for at least eight people who remained missing.
Greek port police told AFP that 37 people were picked up in adverse weather condition after the boat went down near international waters near the Greek island.
Five of them were taken by helicopter to the Greek island of Karpathos on Thursday while 30 others were transported to the Greek town of Lerapetra in southeast of Crete, AFP reported.
Turkey’s defense ministry also said two Turkish frigates and a maritime patrol aircraft were also searching for the missing migrants.
In October 2020, the Kurdistan parliament’s committee of relations and Kurdish diaspora said nearly 14,500 youths from the Region had migrated to European countries in the year. Twenty-seven have gone missing.
Nearly 450,000 people in the Region and Iraq had migrated to Europe between 2014 and 2020, according to the parliament’s committee.
