A boat carrying about 200 migrants which had sent out a distress signal off Crete on Monday was spotted safe and sailing to Italy, the Greek coast guard said. Greece had ordered a Greek-flagged tanker and a Panama-flagged freighter earlier on Monday to search for the 25-metre long fishing vessel after it sent out a mayday signal about 80 nautical miles south of Crete and 15 nautical miles within Libyan waters. Greece has not rescued the migrants because the boat was not in Greek territory and the passengers were safe, a coastguard official told Reuters. It was not immediately known where the boat had set sail from.
