Illegal immigrants in Thrace, Rhodes, Lesvos
A total of 75 illegal Asian and African immigrants were arrested trying to enter Greece from Turkey in three separate incidents yesterday. During a spot check in the area of Xanthi, Thrace, border guards found 51 illegal immigrants – 41 Burmese, seven Chinese, two Afghans and a Bangladeshi – in the back of a truck heading for Athens. The driver was arrested, along with the man driving a car that had preceded the heavy vehicle and was allegedly scouting the road ahead for police. On Rhodes, the coast guard arrested 17 Afghan, Kurdish and Iranian immigrants who had landed in a wooden boat, while six Somalis and a Palestinian were detained on Lesvos. Meanwhile, a court in Patras on Saturday handed a six-month prison sentence and a 2,200-euro fine to British national Timothy Robert Andrews for trying to smuggle 14 illegal immigrants onto an Italy-bound ferry last year.
