THESSALONIKI — Greek police said Friday a car suspected to have been ferrying migrants from the Turkish border toward the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki crashed, killing two people and injuring six.

A passing driver saw an overturned car off the road on the route between the northern Greek towns of Kavala and Serres at around 6:30 a.m. Friday and alerted authorities, police said. 

All eight people had been crammed into the car. They are believed to have been traveling from the Evros border region toward Thessaloniki. 

Authorities did not have any immediate information on the nationalities of the migrants, who were all men. It was unclear why the car came off the road, and whether one of the eight had been driving or if someone else had been driving and had fled the scene for fear of arrest as a smuggler. 

Thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa attempt to cross into the European Union each year through Greece, either from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands or across the land border in northeastern Greece.