On Thursday, the coasties said authorities had found 107 people the previous day on the islands of Samos, Mykonos and the tiny island of Ro, which lies in the Mediterranean off the southern coast of
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...Those were in addition to another 109 people whose arrival Wednesday the coasties announced the same day on the islands of Lesbos, Rhodes, Samos and Santorini, while a further 118 arrived Tuesday on the islands of Ro, Rhodes and Lesbos.
Most were picked up near the coastline by coasties patrol boats from dinghies or other vessels provided by smugglers. All were taken to migrant reception centers.
For decades Greece has been one of the preferred entry points into the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
for people fleeing conflict or poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia and hoping for a better life in Europe.
More than 14,000 people have reached Greece by land and sea so far this year, according to United Nations
...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense...
figures. That’s about a tenth of the total successful Mediterranean crossings, most of which — about 104,000 — were to Italia. Arrivals in Greece for the whole of 2022 totaled 19,000.
In June, a battered fishing trawler heading from Libya to Italia with an estimated 500-750 people on board sank in international waters off southwestern Greece. Only 104 survivors were found, and Greek authorities were heavily criticized for failing to evacuate the vessel in time.
The government has attributed the rise in migrant crossings over the past two months to better summer weather and smugglers taking advantage of an increase in Aegean small boat traffic during the tourist season.
After nearly a million people entered Greece at the height of Europe’s 2015 migration crisis, the vast majority hoping to move north to wealthier European countries, Greece increased patrols along the sea and land border with Turkey to halt arrivals.
Human rights groups and