More than 200 migrants reached Crete Wednesday, authorities said, amid a growing traffic of small boats risking the long Mediterranean Sea crossing from north Africa to the southern Greek island.
Nearly 6,000 people have reached Crete from the Tobruk area of eastern Libya so far this year, accounting for about half of all migrant arrivals in Greece.
The government has voiced concern at the large flows of what it says are mostly economic migrants from north Africa, and threatened to take unspecified “drastic” action to stem the arrivals.
Thousands of people from the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Africa enter the country illegally every year by land and sea, seeking to move on to Europe’s prosperous heartland in hope of a better life.
The Coast Guard said 182 men, women and children were found early Wednesday along a rocky section of coast between the beaches of Katarti and Salamia on southern Crete. Most were nationals of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Egypt.
