Greek police investigate human trafficking links to deadly Thessaloniki crash

Three people were killed and 12 injured after the car, filled with migrants, plunged off a cliff

SKALA SIKAMINEAS, GREECE - OCTOBER 10: Volunteers from Light House Relief help migrants land on a beach after making the crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos on October 10, 2019 in Skala Sikamineas, Greece. The influx of migrants continues forcing authorities to begin the relocation of refugees and migrants from the overcrowded Moria Camp to the mainland in a bid to ease pressure on the island camp. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
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Police in Greece have said they believe the driver of a vehicle that crashed off an isolated road killing three had links to a people smuggling network.

The collision, which also injured 12, occurred near the Greek village of Areti, some 40 kilometres north of the port city of Thessaloniki.

The vehicle, which according to the Greek press was filled with migrants, careered off a cliff after it collided with an oncoming car.

Authorities have said there were at least 11 migrants in the vehicle at the time of the accident. It is not clear how many more passengers were inside during the collision or whether the driver was among the casualties.

The emergency services attended the site of the accident late on Wednesday with the injured taken to nearby hospitals.

The driver is believed to have worked for a people smuggling gang involved in trafficking refugees and migrants from Turkey through mainland Greece. The route from the Evros river, which separates Greece from Turkey, is a well-worn people smuggling route.

Migrants will pay a fee to smugglers to take them inland, bypassing islands in the Aegean where the vast majority of asylum seekers have been forced to wait in recent years while their claims are processed.

Scores of migrants, many of them coming from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have been killed in traffic collisions while being smuggled across Greece.

In October last year the bodies of 11 migrants were pulled from the wreckage of a vehicle travelling towards Thessaloniki. The car had failed to stop for a routine police check before the deadly collision.

In June of the same year nine people, mainly for Syria and Iran, including three children were killed in a crash near Kavala in northern Greece.

Greece’s government has scrambled in recent weeks to deal with the fallout from an influx of refugees which have overwhelmed its camps on the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos.

Between January and May on average around 3,000 migrants arrived to the Greek islands from Turkey each month, the UN’s migration agency has said. During the summer months this figure increased considerably to 5,500 in July, 8,300 in August and 8,000 arriving in September.

In reaction to rise in numbers Greece has begun transporting hundreds of migrants to centres on the mainland, reversing the policy of containing new arrivals on southern islands which had been in place since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015.