26 January 2015, 23:40 GMT
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Two Ukrainian citizens have been arrested on the migrant smuggling charges by an Italian law enforcement agency, Guardia di Finanza (GdF), and local police in city of Crotone in Italian Calabria, local media reported Friday.
The suspects were intercepted after they disembarked 16 Syrian migrants and were leaving the coastal town of Isola Capo Rizzuto for the international waters, Gazzetta del Sud reported. The Ukrainian nationals were identified as smugglers by the migrants themselves.
Europe has been beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their crisis-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa to escape violence and poverty. The majority of them cross the Mediterranean Sea and arrive in the European Union using southern EU nations as transit points. More than 1.8 million refugees are estimated to have arrived in the European Union in 2015, according to the European border agency Frontex.
