The Portuguese navy said in a statement that the boat carrying the migrants, who are all Afghan nationals, was detected by the coastal surveillance team at around 9 pm on Tuesday, which then passed on the coordinates to the team on board the "TEJO" vessel, which rescued the migrants at 9:27pm.

The boat was then towed by the maritime police's vessel to the Skala Skamineas port, where the migrants disembarked safely.

This morning at around 4 am, the Portuguese maritime police, following the request by the Greek authorities and Frontex, started new searches to find migrants.