In another incident underlining the dangers facing migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe, Greece’s coast guard on Friday rescued 50 migrants who ran aground on a chain of rocky islands off the southwestern tip of the Peloponnese.
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The migrants were rescued near the town of Methoni on August 19.
Greece’s coast guard has rescued more than 300 people since August 8 on nine migrant boats that have run into trouble in the Aegean Sea.
Coastguard vessels picked up the people on Friday morning, ferrying them to the mainland where they were to be registered.
Aid agency Save The Children said that arrivals to the Greek islands during the past two weeks were up by 144 per cent compared with the same period in the previous month.
The 35 migrants have reached one of the most touristic beaches of Mykonos on Friday afternoon, arriving at Fragkia and continuing at Lia beach, accompanied by Hellenic Coast Guard officers.
The public order ministry says four Pakistani and two Algerian nationals who had entered Greece illegally were taken back by boat from the eastern island of Lesbos Thursday. More specifically, 3,072 are found on Chios and 1,058 on Samos.
The organisation called on the European Union “to ensure that the inhumane treatment of refugees and migrants is immediately ended, particularly the vulnerable and unaccompanied children still detained in closed facilities, months after they arrived in Greece”. “Except this time, most asylum seekers are unable to continue their journeys, and are trapped on the islands, in overcrowded facilities, and under the blazing sun”, said Katie Dimmer, Save the Children’s director of operations in Greece.
Last year, Greece was the main point of entry into the EU for hundreds of thousands of people seeking better lives in northern and central European countries.
Under the deal, new arrivals on Greek islands face being returned to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece.
Including those on the islands, there are now 57,679 migrants stranded in Greece, up from about 42,000 in March.
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Despite the extreme danger involved, some migrants are still turning to the longer, considerably more perilous route from Libya to Italy.
