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A group of 29 migrants was rescued Tuesday off a crippled boat in the Mediterranean Sea south of Crete, Greek authorities said, on an increasingly busy migration route from North Africa to Europe.
A coast guard statement said the boat was located about 27 miles south of Gavdos, a small island off Crete’s southern coast, by a passing merchant ship after passengers made a distress call.
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The migrants were being ferried to southern Crete. No information was immediately available on their health, nationality or port of embarkation.
The Greek flag is photographed cast against a clear sky. (Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Southern Crete and Gavdos, 27 nautical miles off the island, have seen a substantial increase in migrant arrivals this year. Most leave from the eastern Libyan port of Tobruk, having paid smuggling gangs up to $5,000 each.
According to United Nations data, more than 1,200 people have reached the area this year, out of a total of about 9,600 who arrived in Greece by sea.
On Sunday, another 74 people were rescued off a boat south of Gavdos, which is about 11 square miles in size and has just a few dozen residents in the winter. Two of the people on the vessel were later arrested on suspicion of belonging to a migrant-smuggling gang.
