Greece rescues cargo ship with 400 migrants in misery off island of Crete

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ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece mounted a rescue operation on Friday for a cargo ship carrying about 400 migrants after it despatched out a misery sign off the island of Crete, the coast guard mentioned.

The Greek coast guard quoted passengers as saying the Turkish-flagged vessel had sailed from Turkey, calling it “one of many largest search and rescue operations carried out within the jap Mediterranean.”

Authorities mentioned the ship was being taken to land however gave no additional particulars. The nationalities of the passengers weren’t instantly made public.

Greece is likely one of the essential routes into the European Union for asylum-seekers arriving from Turkey. However the variety of arrivals has fallen sharply since 2016 after the EU and Ankara agreed a deal to cease migrants from crossing to Greece.

Almost 1 million individuals, primarily Syrian refugees, arrived within the EU in 2015 after crossing to Greek islands near Turkey. For the reason that Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August, many EU states worry a replay of that disaster.

On Tuesday, 4 migrants, three of them kids, drowned after a ship by which they and 23 others had been making an attempt to cross from Turkey to Greece sank off the island of Chios.

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris; Enhancing by Mark Heinrich)



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