{"id":14822,"date":"2026-04-20T18:14:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/kikilias-pledges-to-defend-crete-against-immigrants\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T18:14:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:14:04","slug":"kikilias-pledges-to-defend-crete-against-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/kikilias-pledges-to-defend-crete-against-immigrants\/","title":{"rendered":"Kikilias pledges to \u2018defend\u2019 Crete against immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-1301412\">\n    <!-- .entry-header --><\/p>\n<div class=\"first-img article_thumbnail_wrapper\" itemscope=\"\" itemprop=\"associatedMedia\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\">\n                                                                    <picture><source media=\"(max-width: 767px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/5_aASG145.width-1600-320x200.jpg?v=1776705005\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"600\" class=\"picture-main-block-image\" data-nxsrc=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/5_aASG145.width-1600.jpg?v=1776705005\" alt=\"Kikilias pledges to \u2018defend\u2019 Crete against immigrants\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/5_aASG145.width-1600-960x600.jpg?v=1776705005\"\/><br \/>\n                        <\/source><\/picture>\n<p>Vassilis Kikilias, the maritime affairs minister, meets Coast Guard officials during a visit to Crete. [Handout\/Hellenic Coast Guard]<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p>Greece\u2019s maritime affairs minister pledged Monday to \u201cdefend\u201d the southern island of Crete against a wave of immigration in small boats that risk the long and dangerous passage from north Africa to reach European soil.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking during a visit to the island, Vassilis Kikilias said that Crete was his \u201cfirst priority\u201d and said the conservative government is investing in more patrol boats, drones and personnel to fight illegal immigration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt a difficult time, with wars, a civil war in Sudan and migratory flows, we are trying to organize ourselves in the best possible way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe love the island, we love our islanders and we need to defend Crete,\u201d Kikilias said. \u201cSo we are strengthening it with more Coast Guard personnel and we have more vessels here than anywhere else due to the situation with immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In recent months, Crete has become the prime destination for migrants from the Middle East and Africa trying to enter Greece, en route to Europe\u2019s prosperous heartland. So far this year, more than 2,300 people have successfully made the crossing, which amounts to more than a third of total arrivals by sea and land.<\/p>\n<p>The second most popular single point of arrival is Lesvos in the eastern Aegean Sea, with about 800 people making landfall there since January 1. Lesvos lies close to the Turkish littoral, while Crete is roughly a three-day journey from eastern Libya.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .entry-content --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n        var NXFBPixelFunc = function () {\n            document.removeEventListener(\"scroll\", NXFBPixelFunc);\n            setTimeout(function () {\n                !function (f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\n                    if (f.fbq) return;\n                    n = f.fbq = function () {\n                        n.callMethod ?\n                            n.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments)\n                    };\n                    if (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\n                    n.push = n;\n                    n.loaded = !0;\n                    n.version = '2.0';\n                    n.queue = [];\n                    t = b.createElement(e);\n                    t.async = !0;\n                    t.src = v;\n                    s = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n                    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s)\n                }(window, document, 'script',\n                    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n                fbq('init', '109138906120213');\n                fbq('track', 'PageView');\n            }, 0)\n        };\n        document.addEventListener(\"scroll\", NXFBPixelFunc);\n    <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/news\/1301412\/kikilias-pledges-to-defend-crete-against-immigrants\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vassilis Kikilias, the maritime affairs minister, meets Coast Guard officials during a visit to Crete. [Handout\/Hellenic Coast Guard] Greece\u2019s maritime affairs minister pledged Monday to \u201cdefend\u201d the southern island of Crete against a wave of immigration in small boats that risk the long and dangerous passage from north Africa to reach European soil. Speaking during &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"Kikilias pledges to \u2018defend\u2019 Crete against immigrants\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/kikilias-pledges-to-defend-crete-against-immigrants\/#more-14822\" aria-label=\"Read more about Kikilias pledges to \u2018defend\u2019 Crete against immigrants\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/5_aASG145.width-1600-960x600.jpg?v=1776705005","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","no-featured-image-padding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}