Portuguese Maritime Police rescued 37 migrants including children from a dinghy in the Aegean sea and transported them to the island of Lesbos in Greece.
Two babies, five children and 12 women including two pregnant women were among those rescued. They said they had come from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Irregular sea arrivals from the Middle East and North Africa have dropped from over 1 million in 2015 to a little over 140,000 people last year, United Nations data shows, with fewer than 23,000 refugees and migrants crossing the sea to Europe so far this year.
This week rights group the Council of Europe said the EU was violating international law with its increasingly restrictive stance on immigration and called on the bloc to step up sea rescues.
