NICOSIA, Cyprus — A court in Cyprus on Friday ordered that two Syrian men remain in police custody for seven days on suspicion of people smuggling after authorities rescued a total 45 Syrian migrants aboard two rickety vessels off the island nation’s southern coast.
The decision came after the court heard that the two Syrians — aged 18 and 20, respectively — were the captains of the vessels sailing separately southeast of the island. One vessel was a wooden boat “in bad shape” while the other was an inflatable craft from which passengers had signaled that they were in distress.
A police helicopter located the vessels on Thursday, about 46 kilometers (16 miles) and 65 kilometers (22 miles) southeast of the island.
All migrants, including four women and 15 minors — five of them unescorted — were brought ashore aboard police patrol boats and transferred to a migrant reception center. A merchant ship near the inflatable craft assisted in the rescue.
Police said the migrants said they had departed from the Syrian port of Tartus on Wednesday and had each paid $2,500 for the trip to Cyprus.
According to official statistics, 400 of the 4,792 migrants who arrived to Cyprus so far this year reached the country by boat. Almost all were Syrians departing from Syria.
That marks a significant increase in the ratio of migrants who arrived to Cyprus by boat, compared to previous years. Last year, 807 of 17,434 arriving migrants came by boat while the year before that, 713 of 11,913 arrivals were by boat.
An overcrowded fishing boat carrying migrants sank off Greece last week in one of the deadliest incidents in the central Mediterranean Sea.
Sourse: abcnews.go.com
