A search is underway in the Mediterranean Sea after a crew member on the Viking Star went overboard during a cruise on Monday morning.

A spokesperson for Viking Cruises confirmed to Fox News Digital that a member of the crew was seen going overboard at 11:31 a.m. local time. The ship immediately activated its emergency response and began a search in coordination with the Italian Coast Guard.

The spokesperson said no further details were available at this time.

The eight-day, seven-night Viking ocean cruise began in Athens, Greece, before sailing to Turkey and the Greek island of Crete. During the journey on Monday from Crete to the city of Palermo in Sicily, Italy, an announcement was made over the ship’s PA system that a crew member had gone overboard.

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A Fox News producer aboard the cruise said that the announcement visibly shocked a waiter serving lunch as others rushed to the railings to scan the ocean. One person was heard saying, “I see someone.”

A crew member was seen lowering a small ring with an attached flare into the water in the area where the crew member went overboard on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. (Andrew Fone; Fox News)

A crew member was seen tossing an orange life ring into the ocean before lowering a smaller ring with an attached flare into the water minutes later. The ship was slowly circling the area where the crew member went overboard as the Italian Coast Guard conducted a maritime search.

A crew member was seen throwing an orange life ring into the sea to mark the area where the crew member went overboard on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. (Andrew Fone; Fox News)

The cruise director later announced to those onboard the ship that the search area had been expanded.

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Details about the missing crew member and the circumstances in which they went overboard are unclear.

One passenger who rushed to the ship’s railing could be heard saying, “I see someone.” (Andrew Fone; Fox News)

Fox News was told that it appeared the missing crew member was on the second deck when the incident happened.

The Viking Star can carry up to 930 passengers and about 500 crew members.

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After the cruise stops in Sicily, it is scheduled to continue to Naples and finally Civitavecchia, a coastal city about an hour outside of Rome.

Fox News’ Andrew Fone contributed to this report.

Irregular entries into the European Union decreased by 22% in the first nine months of 2025, according to the bloc’s border agency, Frontex.

The sharpest decline was registered on the western African route, which saw a 58% drop in irregular crossings, with only 734 detections in September.

Western Balkan and eastern land border routes also registered a decrease in irregular crossings by 47% and 36%, respectively.

Experts suggest that global conflicts and even in the environment could be the cause of the general slowdown in irregular crossings.

“The overall decrease can be linked to a number of factors, notably eruption or cessation of strife or conflict, political uncertainty, closer cooperation on border control, but also weather conditions”, said Helena Hahn, policy analyst with the European Migration and Diversity Program at the European Policy Centre (EPC).

However, she added that the numbers should not be understood as fewer people in general being on the move.

“On the contrary, the number of international migrants has risen since 2020, as has the number of forcibly displaced persons. They are just not coming to Europe at the same rates as immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Hahn.

Nevertheless, other routes remain a significant hubs of activity, while others still saw increases.

The central Mediterranean is the busiest route, accounting for nearly 40% of all irregular entries this year.

Libya is the main departure point for this route, recording a 50% increase in departures compared with 2024.

The majority of migrants taking this route come from Bangladesh, Eritrea, and Egypt.

On the western Mediterranean route, irregular crossings increased by 28%, with September alone seeing arrivals rise by more than half.

Departures from Algeria accounted for almost three-quarters of detections on this route this year.

“Morocco’s stronger prevention efforts have pushed more people to seek smuggling services in Algeria,” the Frontex report stated. “This has led to closer cooperation between Algerian and Moroccan smuggling networks and a shift of some operations to Algerian territory.”

Human toll weighs heavily as more than 1,000 die

Despite the overall decline, human costs remain high.

In 2025, 1,328 migrants died or went missing while using the Mediterranean routes, with the majority of those identified being men, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) database.

The central Mediterranean route is the most fatal of them all, with 895 individuals dead or missing. The main cause of death is drowning.

Many migrants have tried to travel legally and opted to travel irregularly only after their visas were denied.

“Behind these missing migrants are families and communities looking for answers and coping with their absence,” the IOM’s Families of Missing Migrants report stated.