Squalid cave where 100 migrants hid
DANK, dark and rubbish-strewn, this is the squalid cave where more than 100 immigrants desperate to get to Britain were held captive by people traffickers. Greek police rescued 112 women, men and children sleeping on filthy blankets and torn towels while huddled under a single lightbulb deep in the mountains of southern Crete.
Each had paid between £1,750 and £3,500 for transport from Athens to Crete and then on to Italy in a dangerous sea crossing on their way to the UK.
En route, the traffickers forced the migrants, from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Iran, to stay in dilapidated farm buildings and cold, crumbling caves before they were rescued last March. Photographs of the squalid conditions they endured emerged yesterday as four ringleaders of the huge international trafficking gang responsible were sentenced to a total of more than 1,400 years in jail by a Greek court. Two Afghan men and a Syrian were each given 360 years, while a fourth Iraqi gang member was given 357 years.