File photo of migrants reaching Crete.
Dozens more migrants were rescued off the southern island of Crete Monday, officials said, where thousands of people have arrived this year in small boats from Libya alarming authorities in Athens.
Nearly half the estimated 10,000 migrants to have illegally entered Greece so far this year by land and sea have set off from the north African country. The rest departed from Turkey.
A total 60 people were picked up from two boats in trouble dozens of miles south of the island of Gavdos, off Crete’s southern shore. On Sunday, at least another 42 men were rescued by a merchant ship in the same area after setting off in a small boat from the region of Tobruk in eastern Libya.
Tobruk is a major point of departure for people from the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Africa seeking a better life in Europe, who pay smuggling gangs thousands of euros to be ferried to Crete. From Greece, they hope to proceed north and west towards Europe’s prosperous heartland.
