22 migrants die in truck accident in latest tragedy
Another migrant tragedy has struck in the Aegean province of İzmir when a truck overturned, killing 22, including children
A FREIGHT truck carrying migrants overturned in the Menderes region of İzmir on the Aegean coast, killing 22 people and injuring a further 13. Reports said the truck fell onto the dried riverbed of Değirmençay several meters below the road. Of the 22 dead, six were children. Turkish television showed the wreckage of the vehicle, which was reduced to burned-out metal by the impact of the crash with corpses strewn around. The dead included two babies and two children and a pregnant woman. The injured driver, Mustafa Yılmaz, 35, was taken to Medical Sciences University İzmir Bozyaka Education and Research Hospital.
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AUTHORITIES said Yılmaz did not have a license to drive a truck. The police questioned the driver, who admitted picking up the migrants in the neighboring province of Aydın. Anadolu Agency (AA) reported the driver saying: “A white car suddenly turned towards me. When I pressed the brakes, they wouldn’t work. I tried to save us, but the truck eventually overturned.”
The local prosecutor’s office launched a criminal investigation, and the driver will be sent to the local court for his arrest after treatment, reports said.
One witness, Mehmet Eker, told AA that he had taken the injured driver to hospital. “It was first light. Someone by the side of the road tried to stop me. I was cautious. I stopped the car a bit ahead. He walked towards me and said, ‘I had an accident, and I’m injured.’ He called a few people from my phone, but no one answered.”
Eker said the driver later wanted to get off at a taxi stop. “Later, someone he called, called me back. I told him who I was and who was trying to call them. The person on the phone said he didn’t know anyone by that name or who fit that description. He asked me where I was. I said İzmir. I asked him, and he said Mersin [on the southern Mediterranean coast.]”
The bodies were taken to the morgue where they will be examined, and the truck was taken away.
Demirören News Agency said that the vehicle was headed for the coast of the Izmir region from where the migrants planned to take inflatable dinghies, which had been packed into their vehicle, to Greece’s Samos Island. Samos is just a few kilometers north of Turkey’s Dilek peninsula that juts out from the Izmir region.
Turkey is a key transit points for migrants from troubled countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa seeking a new life in Europe. A million migrants crossed from Turkey into Greece in 2015, mostly by boats, in a crisis that forced a deal between Ankara and the EU to stem the flow of people. Numbers have fallen since. The deal has been in place despite the EU failing to keep its promises. In return for accepting any irregular refugee who entered the EU, Brussels was supposed to provide three billion euros in aid for the upkeep of the refugees. It also promised to lift visa restrictions for Turkish citizens.
Last week, eight migrants were found drowned off the Karaburun district, also in Izmir province, after their boat capsized. Twenty-six others are still officially listed as missing after that accident, according to AA. After the disaster off Karaburun, four suspected smugglers were arrested following evidence given by an Iraqi who survived, AA reported. They had demanded a fee of $1,500 from each migrant.