ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Greek authorities have discovered 84 migrants arriving by sea and arrested four suspected human traffickers who transported them, the coast guard announced Sunday. Both incidents reportedly occurred early Saturday morning.
In the first incident, the coast guard was alerted to a boat drifting 46 nautical miles (85 kilometers) south of Crete due to mechanical failure.
A Greek Navy frigate spotted the boat and rescued 72 people, 58 men and 14 minors, and took them to Crete.
After interrogating the new arrivals, the coast guard arrested two of them, aged 30 and 18, as the traffickers operating the boat.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 41,561 people will arrive in Greece by sea in 2023, up from 12,758 in 2022. The number of arrivals reached 10,839 in September.
The boat set sail from the Libyan port of Tobruk. The rescued migrants told Greek authorities that they each paid between $2,000 and $4,000 to travel to Greece.
The two arrested are charged with forming a gang and facilitating and endangering the illegal entry of individuals into the country.
More than 2,500 illegal boat migrants have drowned or gone missing in the Mediterranean this year, according to a United Nations report. https://t.co/TI97MSQLGZ
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 2, 2023
In the second case, the coast guard was alerted early Saturday morning that people had landed on the coast of Rhodes.
The coast guard sent patrol boats to the waters near the landing site, and Greek police also sent foot patrols.
A patrol boat intercepted a high-speed boat with two men on board as it headed toward the Turkish coast. The two foreign nationals did not have travel documents and declared themselves to be 34 and 24 years old, respectively.
A short time later, authorities said a police patrol spotted 14 migrants, including five men, four women and five minors. They were discovered where the Mexican-American actor purchased property in the area after filming “The Guns of Navarone” on location with co-stars Gregory Peck and David Niven in 1960. It is called Anthony Quinn Beach after him.
Authorities said they had captured the speedboat. They believe the two arrested were human traffickers who were on their way back to their base in Turkey.
The ethnicities of the rescued migrants and traffickers have not yet been made public.
