News.com
GREEK naval police arrested 130 mostly Kurdish and Afghan immigrants aboard a fishing ship in the Aegean Sea, the ministry of merchant shipping said.

The immigrants were said to be attempting to reach Greece aboard a Turkish boat which had launched a distress signal after a mechanical failure off the south-east coast of a Greek island. 

Two rescue boats belonging to the port authorities and accompanied by a Greek naval gunboat were sent out to escort the boat to shore. 

Most of the immigrants, which include 124 men, three women and three children, are either Iraqi Kurds or Afghans. 

They have been detained by port authorities. 

The Turkish captain of the fishing boat has been arrested and his craft impounded, the ministry statement said. 

On Tuesday, Turkish security forces detained 85 would-be illegal immigrants, mostly Afghans, bound for neighbouring Greece. 

On January 7, two crew members from a Turkish ship were arrested after it attempted to cross over to Greece with almost 300 illegal immigrants aboard. 

Asian and African would-be immigrants hoping to reach Europe illegally are rounded up on a daily basis in Turkey, which lies on a major human-smuggling route to Europe.