Authorities in North Macedonia rescued 211 migrants, including 144 Bangladeshis packed into a truck near the country's southern border with Greece, said police on Tuesday.
During a routine check on a regional road, a border patrol stopped the truck around midnight Monday near the town of Gevgelija, and found the migrants including the Bangladeshis and 67 Pakistani migrants, UNB reported citing the Associated Press.
Among the rescued migrants, there were also 63 children.
Police also arrested the truck driver, a 27-year-old Macedonian national identified by only by his initials E.P.
The migrants were detained and transferred to a shelter transit centre in Gevgelija pending deportation back to Greece.
The Greek border with North Macedonia was closed earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but trafficking networks remain active in the area, ferrying migrants who make their way from Turkey into Greece and then head north toward more prosperous countries in the European Union's center and north.
