Navy vessels and a Super Puma rescue helicopter yesterday rescued 25 illegal immigrants from a rowboat between the Dodecanese island of Samos and the Turkish coast. According to the Merchant Marine Ministry, the vessel had appealed for help, as it was being buffeted by strong winds. Meanwhile in Thessaloniki, police detained six would-be migrants and their two suspected smugglers, a 40-year-old Greek and a 30-year-old foreign national. Three of the migrants were arrested at the city’s railway station, where they had been waiting with the Greek to board a train to Athens. The other three migrants were detained after the police searched the foreigner’s apartment.

A 42-year-old man from Xanthi was remanded in custody yesterday after having been charged with the murder of an 80-year-old resident of the northern city. After receiving an anonymous tip-off, police broke into the home of the elderly man where they found him dead from multiple wounds to the chest, stomach, arms, back and head. It is unclear when the victim was attacked or how police linked the apparent murder to the 42-year-old suspect.

Port Authority officials in Rafina were yesterday scouring the coast for two amateur fishermen, both aged 30, who had failed to return from a fishing outing on Saturday. Relatives of both men had expressed concern due to strong winds in the area. There had been no sign of the men by late yesterday.

A mild earthquake, measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale, struck the town of Andravida in the northwestern Peloponnese, shortly after midnight on Saturday but there were no reports of any injuries or damage. The epicenter of the tremor was the same as that of the strong, 6.5-magnitude quake that killed two locals and caused serious damage last June. The earthquake this weekend was felt across the prefectures of Achaia, Ileia and Aitoloacarnania, many parts of which are still recovering from last year’s catastrophic forest fires.

There will be no tram service between noon and 4 p.m. today as workers stage a work stoppage to attend their annual general meeting.

Firemen on Saturday recovered the charred remains of a 52-year-old man from his home in Mantineia, in the central Peloponnese, where a large fire had broken out overnight for reasons that were unclear. The man’s wife was transferred to the hospital suffering from serious burns, while the house was completely destroyed, firemen said.

Port Authority officials in Patras on Saturday arrested the driver of a refrigerated truck after discovering 44,000 boxes of contraband cigarettes hidden amid the vehicle’s cargo of peppers. The truck had been due to board a ferry bound for Italy.