Human traffickers left four Moldovan woman and one man on the shores of the monastic community of Mt. Athos in Southern Macedonia.

The smugglers had taken the Moldovan nationals from Turkey, leaving them on the Greek shores of the autonomous province of Mt. Athos, considered the spiritual home of Orthodox Christianity.

A Greek police officer said the women had told the monks who found them that they couldn't have known the area was off-limits to women and that in turn "They were forgiven".

Greece has a major problem with illegal immigrants being smuggled from Turkey via boat and also via it's northern provinces; through Thrace, Macedonia and Epirus.

 (SOURCE: REUTERS)

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