ATHENS, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Greek police have arrested two Syrians aged 17 and 23 on charges of migrant smuggling after a car crash resulted in the light injury of 13 persons, including many migrants from Bangladesh, in the city of Thessaloniki in northern Greece, the national news agency AMNA reported on Friday.
The 17-year-old Syrian driver of a vehicle carrying the migrants did not stop for a police check on the national highway linking Thessaloniki to other cities in northern Greece and the Turkish border and in the ensuing chase the car crashed into another car, AMNA reported citing local police.
A Greek driver of the other car, as well as the two Syrians, and ten Bangladeshis, were transferred to hospitals. None of them has suffered serious injuries, according to doctors.
Similar incidents, which often resulted in fatalities, have occurred in northern Greece in recent years.
In spite of the 2016 agreement between the European Union (EU) and Turkey aimed at stemming the influx of refugees and migrants into Europe, thousands of people still illegally enter Greece across the land border with Turkey, as well as via the Aegean Sea, on a daily basis seeking to continue their journey to other European countries.
More than one million migrants have reached Greece since 2015. In 2019, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Greece registered a total of 74,482 arrivals, significantly up from the 50,508 recorded in 2018. The majority (59,457) last year crossed the Aegean Sea, while 14,891 people entered Greece from Turkey through the land border in the north.
