Athens: Tuesday, 52 people who were crammed onto a sailing boat and anchored off an uninhabited island far from the Greek mainland were saved by the coast guard, according to reports.
The sailing boat was discovered at first by a private vessel off the tiny island of Falconera, according to authorities. The island is situated in a region with strong currents and rough seas, halfway between Milos and the Peloponnese. Later on Tuesday, the migrants were transported by coast guard ships to the port of Lavrio on the Greek mainland, southeast of Athens.
Tuesday saw a separate rescue of 19 people from a dinghy that had lost steering northeast of the island of Samos in the eastern Aegean. The coast guard reported that 14 migrants were rescued on Monday from a small boat off the island of Lesbos, and another 18 in a different dinghy were found later that day off the same island.
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In one of the worst Mediterranean migrant catastrophes in years, a battered trawler carrying up to 750 people from Libya to Italy sank southwest of Greece in June. Only 104 people managed to survive, and Greek authorities came under fire for their slow response.
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In recent weeks, more people have been entering Greece by sea, according to Greece. People fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia have long used this nation as one of their preferred entry points into the European Union. Long a major entry point, its eastern islands near Turkey have seen a decline in arrivals as a result of stricter deterrence measures.
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However, Greece has faced harsh criticism for what rights groups have described as a routine practise of summarily deporting recent immigrants back to Turkey without giving them the chance to request asylum. The government vehemently disputes that it conducts such deportations.