AFP, Istanbul :
Turkey on Monday detained 1,300 migrants seeking to head to Europe from its Aegean coast, in a major swoop just hours after agreeing a deal with the European Union to stop the migration flow, the Dogan news agency reported.
In a operation staring before dawn, a 250-strong police team raided eight different locations on the coast around the resort town of Ayvacik, the report said.
Some 850 people were initially detained, with the number rising to 1,300 later in the day. Three suspected people traffickers were arrested while four boats and six motors were seized, it added.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants, many from Syria, have in the last month sought to escape to the European Union from the Turkish coast.
The European Union agreed at a summit on Sunday on a three-billion-euro ($3.2 billion) aid deal to stem the flow of migrants from Turkey, which is hosting over two million Syrian refugees.
The region around Ayvacik has become a hub for refugees seeking to go to EU member Greece, with the Greek island of Lesbos just a few kilometres to the south but the crossing a perilous undertaking in overcrowded, open boats.
Meanwhile, overwhelmed by a stream of migrants, Sweden will soon benefit from a “relocation” programme for some of its asylum seekers, the European Commissioner of Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos said Monday.
“Sweden is among the group of member states that has welcome the highest number of refugees this year,” Avramopoulos said at a press conference in Stockholm, adding that Sweden had made “tremendous efforts”.
In September, the EU unveiled a plan for redistributing nearly 160,000 migrants and refugees from frontline states Italy and Greece although so far only a small number have been relocated.
Earlier this month Sweden asked Brussels to relocate to other EU countries some of the asylum seekers arriving by the thousands in the Scandinavian country.
