by Donald Wood
Last updated: 12:05 AM ET, Tue July 23, 2019
A cruise ship sailing through the Mediterranean Sea over the weekend rescued over 100 migrants after their boat was stranded off the Greek coast.
According to Deutsche Welle, Marella Cruises' 11-deck Marella Discovery was sailing around 40 nautical miles from Greece's Peloponnese peninsula Saturday night when the ship came across a small vessel filled with migrants.
In total, the Marella Discovery rescued 111 people from the sea, including 33 children. The Marella Cruises ship was met by Greek coast guard officials at the port of Kalamata, where the two people who were operating the migrant boat were arrested.
Coast guard representatives confirmed the rescue but refused to share where the migrants were from or where their boat departed. In total, an estimated 24,000 people have attempted the arduous journey across the Mediterranean this year.
While the number of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe has dropped drastically since more than one million people made the journey in 2015, there are still an average of six reported deaths per day of migrants attempting the voyage.
Migrants rescued from the Mediterranean are typically brought to Southern European nations, including Italy, Spain and Greece.
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