Greece's Coast Guard saved about 540 migrants from a boat near Europe's southernmost Island of 'Gavdos' on Friday. This was one of the largest groups of migrants to reach Greece in recent months.

A Coast Guard press release said that the migrants were discovered during a Greek search and rescue operation about 16 nautical miles off Gavdos. The migrants are in good health and will be taken to a temporary facility on Crete, after they reach the port of Agia Galini. A Coast Guard official confirmed that the majority of them are men from Bangladesh, Egypt, and Pakistan.

The Greek Coast Guard reported that in a separate incident, Frontex, the EU border agency, rescued 65 men, five women and two boats of migrants off Gavdos.

Greece was at the forefront of the 2015-16 migration crisis, when over a million migrants from the Middle East & Africa arrived on its shores. They then moved on to other European nations, mostly Germany.

The influx of migrants has?ebbed, but Crete and Gavdos, the two Mediterranean Islands closest to the African coast, have seen an increase in the number of boats arriving from Libya. Greece, Cyprus and Spain will receive help to deal with migrant pressures when a new EU system comes into effect in mid-2026. The centre-right Prime Minister KyriakosMitsotakis' government has stated that deporting rejected asylum seekers is a top priority. (Reporting and writing by Renee Maltezou, Angeliki Koutantou; Additional reporting provided by Stefanos Raphanis; Writing by Angeliki Koutantou)

(source: Reuters)