NICOSIA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Cypriot marine police rescued a total of 305 Syrian immigrants from two boats drifting off the northern coast of the eastern Mediterranean island, a police spokesman said on Sunday.
He said the two overloaded boats were spotted by radar at noon on Saturday, just outside the 12 nautical miles limit of Cyprus's territorial waters.
"When the boats entered our territorial waters a rescue operation was immediately launched as strong winds were blowing in the region at the time," the spokesman said.
The crammed boats were towed into two different fishing ports in the northwestern part of Cyprus, arriving close to midnight.
The police spokesman said that there were 171 people on one of the boats and 134 on the other. Of the total 305 people on the two boats, 202 were men, 30 women and 73 children.
"All aboard the boats were in fairly good condition. A woman and her 10-month-old infant were taken to hospital as a precaution," the spokesman said.
He added that one of the men on the second boat was arrested on suspicion of being one of the traffickers, after some of the immigrants said he was one of the men they paid for the trip and was also driving the boat.
A large amount of money and several watches were found in a bag he had in his possession.
The immigrants were being taken to a special complex near Nicosia on Sunday for detailed processing, before being allocated to immigration centers.
The new arrivals brought the total number of immigrants who arrived in Cyprus so far this year to just over 800, authorities said. About 600 immigrants arrived in 2016. They had all sailed from Turkey's southern port of Mersin.
The new immigrants said they paid 2,000 dollars each to people traffickers for the 300-kilometers trip to Cyprus.
Several of the immigrants told authorities that they have relatives in Cyprus who will host them as their applications for asylum are being processed.
