ATHENS – Greece’s coastguard said it had rescued 32 migrants including one woman who gave birth on an islet near the island of Lesbos early on Wednesday.
The woman and her baby boy born on the tiny island of Barbalias were transferred along with another 26 men and five women to Lesbos. Authorities said they had found the half-sunken rubber boat carrying the migrants near the coast.
Another 108 migrants, among them 24 women and 21 children, were rescued off the island of Mykonos on Saturday.
Greece was the frontline of Europe’s migration crisis in 2015 and 2016, when a million refugees fleeing war and poverty from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan arrived, mainly via Turkey.
The number of migrant arrivals has fallen sharply since then, despite a pick up in the summer months. But Greek authorities say they have recently seen a sharp increase in attempted entries through the country’s islands and land border with Turkey.