|
The
vessel could not sail independently and was being towed by a
Greek coastguard vessel, the official said. It sent the distress
signal near the island of Crete with the coast guard quoting
passengers as saying it had sailed from Turkey.
"The ship is sailing very slowly off Karpathos island, carrying
mostly Afghan migrants. It will dock at a Greek port which has
not been decided yet," the official told Reuters, declining to
be named.
Karpathos is the second largest of the Dodecanese islands in the
southeastern Aegean Sea.
On Friday Greece's Shipping Ministry had asked Turkey to accept
the vessel's return to Turkey, a migration ministry official
said. Greece's migration minister had contacted Turkish
authorities and the EU Commission to resolve the matter.
Greece is the main route into the European Union for
asylum-seekers arriving from Turkey. The number of arrivals has
fallen sharply since 2016 after the EU and Ankara agreed a deal
to stop migrants from crossing to Greece.
Nearly 1 million people, mainly Syrian refugees, arrived in the
EU in 2015 after crossing to Greek islands close to Turkey.
Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August, many EU
states fear a replay of that crisis.
On Tuesday, four migrants, three of them children, drowned after
a boat in which they and 23 others were trying to cross from
Turkey to Greece sank off the island of Chios.
(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
