World IN BRIEF : SWEDEN : Refugees on Rafts Spotted in Baltic Sea
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Three rafts with 36 people aboard were found in the Baltic Sea off the southern tip of Sweden, a news agency reported. Most of the people on the rafts were from Afghanistan, police said. Larger boats in the area were being checked to see if smugglers had put the rafts in the water outside Sweden. Refugees from the Middle East, Asia and the Indian subcontinent frequently travel through the republics of the former Soviet Union and pay smugglers to transport them across the Baltic Sea to Scandinavia.
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