dpa
Athens
Greek authorities on Thursday said they have rescued 245 migrants south of the Mediterranean island of Crete in the past 24 hours.
Greece’s ERT public broadcaster said most of the migrants set off from the Libyan port of Tobruk in small boats. Five men have reportedly been detained as suspected smugglers.
Most of the migrants were initially taken to Gavdos, a small island about 20 nautical miles south of Crete with a population under 100 people, ERT reported.
The island does not have facilities to accommodate so many migrants, leading authorities to transfer the migrants to Crete. Smugglers typically target Greek islands close to Turkey’s coastline, but in recent months they have increasingly chosen longer routes from Libya to Crete, much farther south, and from Turkey through the central Aegean Sea, where coast guard patrols are more relaxed.
According to the UN’s refugee agency, 2,482 migrants have arrived in Crete this year.
In the whole of Greece, more than 25,000 migrants have arrived by sea this year and a further 4,000 by land.
