Police collect illegal migrants found walking near coast

Police identified and picked up two groups of illegal migrants from streets after they landed undetected and were found walking in two coastal areas.

According to police spokesman Christos Andreou, the first of the two separate cases involved the arrival in the early hours of Wednesday, around 1am, of a group of 20 migrants, including two women and one minor, in Protaras. The group was reported by a member of the public to the police.

The boat on which they had arrived, which was not detected by radar, was found at a rocky area near a hotel. The migrants were picked up and following health checks were transferred to the Pournara receptions centre.

The second group involved of 14 Syrian men, including one minor, who were spotted by police walking along the Pomos to Polis Chrysochou road around 2.30am.

According to the police, the group had been brought to Pomos by a speed boat operated by a Turkish trafficker, who dropped off the passengers, turned about and departed. The vessel had been detected by the coast guard about an hour earlier, around 1.30am.

According to passengers on board, the boat had reportedly set off from a port in Mersin at 10pm on Tuesday, and each had each paid the operator $3,500 for the trip.

The group were picked up and transferred to the Polis Chrysochou police station, from where they are expected to continue on to the Pournara reception centre.