At dawn on Monday, April 1, just hours before the visit of Greek Migration Minister Dimitris Kairidis, another 74 migrants were rescued in southern Crete, off the 27-square-kilometer island of Gavdos. Since the beginning of 2024, more than 1,500 exiles from Tobruk, in northeastern Libya, have arrived on the islet, which counts a total of 70 out-of-season residents, a school with just four children, two grocery stores, and a single policeman. This unusual migration route took the Greek authorities by surprise, as there is no reception center on the island, located about 300 kilometers from Tobruk.

For several months now, the mayor of Gavdos, Lilian Stefanakis, has been appealing to the government for help in providing a warehouse with food and first-aid equipment for the new arrivals, who are often exhausted after more than 36 hours of a journey that costs them between $4,000 and $5,000 (or between €3,700 and €4,600), according to testimonies.

In February, in a letter to the Ministry of Migration, the mayor insisted on "the lack of resources to welcome migrants": "As I write to you, 74 souls are stranded on our island and we are trying with the locals to feed them, but we can't offer them the essentials." On Monday, April 1, Stefanakis reiterated her requests to the minister of migration: "We would like financial support to be able to prepare [for an increase in arrivals] and, given the approach of the tourist season, to see how the problem will be managed because, let's not forget, Gavdos lives on tourism." The Socialist Party (PASOK), for its part, warned that "Gavdos must not turn into Lampedusa."

Faced with the situation, Kairidis, during his visit to the island the municipalities to allocate "extra financial help." To quickly transfer the new arrivals from Crete to camps on the mainland, a conservative Cretan MP, Sevi Voloudaki, also asked the minister to "increase the number of coastguards and police." "The figures are low for the moment, but there's no doubt that given what's happening today in Egypt, and of course in the Sahel more widely, we need to be vigilant and keep an eye on how the situation develops," said Kairidis to Le Monde.

Despite recurring accusations of violent pushbacks by the Greek coastguard, the islands in the northeastern Aegean facing Turkey remain the main gateway to Greece. Since the beginning of 2024, 8,000 refugees have arrived on these islands, compared to 3,000 over the same period in 2023. But, for smugglers operating in Libya, access to Italy seems increasingly complicated.

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