The Greek Coast Guard has responded to reports that there was a delayed operation to rescue illegal immigrants who were on a boat on Saturday trying to arrive on the island of Lesvos from Turkey.
According to the announcement on Saturday, a Greek Coast Guard vessel located a Turkish boat with illegal immigrants inside Turkish territorial waters north of Lesvos, while three Turkish coastguards were located near it.
The Greek authorities made repeated attempts to contact the Turkish authorities and the Turkish coastguards so they could recover the boat, but the Turks never responded, according to Proto Thema.
With the entry of the boat full of illegal immigrants into Greek territorial waters on Saturday night, a direct approach was made by a boat of the Greek Navy, whose crew rescued and safely transported the passengers to the port of Petra in Lesvos.
Two women who needed immediate medical attention were picked up by an ambulance and transported to the Vostaneio hospital in Mytilene. They were released a short time after.
Meanwhile, another boat with a total of 36 illegal migrants, including nine men, seven women and 20 children, all reportedly from Syria, crossed into into Lesvos, landing on a coast in the Thermi area on Monday morning.
They were transferred to the migrant camp in Kara Tepe, Lesvos, where they will remain in quarantine.
This is the fourth boat with illegal migrants arriving in Lesvos in June. The total number of arrivals in June currently stands at 144. In the rest of the North Aegean islands, the flows of illegal migrants remain zero since March, bringing some reprieve to many of the islands, including Chios and Kos.
