Saudi maritime patrols have intercepted 31 illegal migrants, mostly from Sudan, trying to reach the Kingdom by sea, the Saudi Press Agency said on Tuesday. SPA has reported a surge of migrant interceptions over the past month. Border Guards on Sunday caught the group of 31 migrants as they made their way to Saudi Arabia "using a wooden boat, coming from Sudan's beaches," SPA said. More than one-third of them were women, it quoted Border Guards spokesman Col. Sahir Al-Harbi as saying. He said the infiltrators were 25 Sudanese, one Nigerian and five Ethiopians. They bring to 308 the number of illegal immigrants intercepted by Saudi Border Guards since the first half of June, according to figures cited by SPA. The vast majority have been Sudanese, whose homeland lies on the other side of the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia. There have also been Ethiopians, Chadians, Nigerians and an Eritrean, SPA said. According to the United Nations, since 2014 more than 10,000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe, which is experiencing its worst migrant crisis since World War II.
