Greek
Police have arrested a 57-year-old driver of articulated vehicle suspected of
human smuggling after they found 19 migrants hidden in a tanker near the Greek
border with Turkey.
The
people from Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and Iran, seven of them minors, were in a
life-threatening situation as they were being transported in the non-ventilated
tank, police said on Friday.
The
migrants apparently travelled on foot from Turkey and were picked up by the
suspected smugglers who planned to take them to a port in western Greece, a
police officer told dpa in Athens.
There
are daily ferries Patras and Igoumenitsa to Brindisi, Bari, Ancona, Venice and
Trieste in Italy.
Refugees
and migrants have not been allowed to freely enter European countries since
April 2016 but many hired smugglers often risk their lives at sea or on the
road.
Meanwhile
the trial of alleged smugglers blamed for the death of 71 migrants packed into
a lorry in August 2015 is ongoing in Hungary.
- DPA/NAN
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