MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Cypriot police rescued 129 refugees, sailing from the Turkish port of Mersin, media reported on Thursday.
According to the InCyprus outlet, there were 62 men, 19 women and 48 children in the boat, including a woman who gave birth during the trip. The boat reportedly arrived in the Tylliria region in the northwestern part of Cyprus late on Wednesday night and was towed to the Latchi harbor in the Paphos district.
While the police are still checking the IDs of the boat passengers, nine men have already been arrested since they have been previously deported from Cyprus.
Thousands of undocumented migrants from the Middle East and North Africa are fleeing their home countries to Europe in a bid 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. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), about 333,000 people arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean in 2016, while more than 3,900 migrants died or went missing while trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean Sea.
