‘Pushed to the limit’: the tiny Greek island in people smugglers’ sights

Even by the standards of small Greek islands, Gavdos is tiny. In a population of fewer than 70 people, there are just two families with four children. The rest “are all old people mostly living alone”, its mayor, Lilian Stefanaki, explains.

It is a micro-world that in the depths of winter is served by a single school, a bakery, two mini-markets and four kafeneia cum tavernas. The remote island – separated from the coast of Crete by frequently unpredictable waters in the Libyan Sea – is watched over by Efsevios Daskalakis, who for much of the year is its sole police officer.

But recently life on Gavdos has been a little less quiet than usual. “The weekend before last we had 150 people arrive from Libya in three very overcrowded boats,” says Stefanaki. “We’re being pushed to the limit because, firstly, there’s no infrastructure to house them on Gavdos.”

At Europe’s southernmost tip, closer to Africa than Athens, the 29-square kilometre island has emerged as the latest focal point for smugglers bent on bringing people to the west.

Of the 9,502 men, women and children who have sought refuge in Greece since January, about 1,186 Egyptians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have arrived in vessels that have landed “in the vicinity” of Crete and Gavdos, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

During the same three-month period last year there were “zero arrivals” on either island, a fact that has spurred fears of a new smuggling route emerging in the Mediterranean.

“It’s been incredible. More than 800 souls in just a few months have landed on our coast in Tripiti,” says Daskalakis, alluding to the rocky promontory at the island’s southernmost point. “They’re young men mostly, who arrive in boats carrying four times their capacity after more than a day-and-a half at sea.”

Often, he says, they were exhausted after making the perilous 180km journey from the port city of Tobruk on Libya’s eastern Mediterranean coast.

“The first thing they do is call the emergency number, 112, which is when I am alerted by central office. There’s no road so I have to walk there if the seas are too turbulent. It’s been quite something. Usually it’s tourists you see at Tripiti because it’s the southernmost tip of Europe and they like to be photographed on the chair [a sculpture] there.”

Until 17 March, when the EU sealed a €7.4bn (£6.4bn) deal with Egypt to stem migration flows, the boats had been coming in thick and fast. “There’d be one or two every two or three days,” Daskalakis says. “But since the [Greek] prime minister and other European leaders went to Cairo to sign the agreement there’s been a noticeable lull. It’s a relief but, then nobody knows how long exactly it will last.”

Greece, like Italy, had pushed hard for the pact despite the prospect of human rights groups decrying a deal with Egypt. The number of people arriving in Greece since 1 January increased by 187%, according to officials.

“No country or local community should be left alone to deal with the challenge of managing flows,” says Stella Nanou, a spokesperson at UNHCR’s Athens branch. “The numbers we are seeing are still manageable but swift coordination, preparedness and support from Greek central authorities and the EU is needed.”

Greece’s migration minister, Dimitris Kairidis, will visit Gavdos this weekend with the aim of ensuring the outpost does not become what he has called “a hotspot of irregular migration”.

Whereas in the past migrant boats from Libya had only stopped in Greece “by default”, it was clear the approach had changed with the country having become a destination, he told the Guardian.

“Unless stopped, we should all brace for the potential of another tragedy similar to the one off Pylos,” he says of the more than 500 men, women and children who drowned when the trawler in which they were travelling from Tobruk capsized in controversial circumstances off the southern Peloponnese last year.

“What we are seeing is criminal smuggler networks putting ever more of these unfortunate people into unseaworthy vessels that should never leave the Libyan coast.”

Underscoring the importance of the three-year EU-Egypt deal, Kairidis insisted the Arab world’s most populous country had not only played a crucial role in stopping irregular migration but merited help to bolster its fragile economy if another migration crisis in Europe was to be averted.

The emergence of the new migration route in southern Greece was not only worrisome, but required being managed properly and in time, he says.

“We need the cooperation of Egypt because it’s mostly Egyptians who are coming. That’s why we pressed for the agreement and giving Egypt the EU support it deserves.”