5 dead as migrant boat sinks off Aegean coast
FIVE people were found dead after a boat carrying illegal migrants sank off Turkey’s Aegean coast yesterday. Search and rescue crews are combing the coastal waters after two survivors told authorities that 15 people were onboard. Turkish authorities said three other migrants were found alive a few hours after receiving the information.
Migrants, including 14 Afghan nationals and one Iranian citizen, were aboard a fiberglass boat traveling from Dikili, a town in the İzmir province, to a nearby Greek island. Two among them who swam to safety told locals their boat sank and the Turkish Coast Guard Command was notified. Helicopters and boats scoured the area to locate the missing. The survivors said three among the migrants were children and media outlets reported that one of bodies found in the area was that of a child.
Connecting Asia to Europe, Turkey is no stranger to a continuous flow of migrants. The influx of illegal migrants, however, has risen considerably in recent years due to the war in neighboring Syria along with other conflicts around the world and poverty affecting underdeveloped countries.
Turkey’s seas, particularly the Aegean in the west, saw a large influx recently with more migrants boarding dinghies to reach Europe. They travel in overcrowded, unsafe boats to reach the Greek islands scattered across the Aegean, only a few kilometers from Turkish shores. Deaths are common in crossings, either due to overcrowding, bad weather or boats steered by illegal migrants inexperienced in sailing. Official figures show 58 illegal migrants died in the Aegean Sea during attempts to travel to Greece this year so far. The death toll for 2017 in total was only 32. Data provided by the Turk- ish Coast Guard also shows a rise in the number of illegal migrants intercepted while trying to cross into Greece, 22,053 as of Nov. 9 from 19,084 last year.
Another group of 21 migrants including Syrians, Palestinians and Somalis were intercepted while heading to Greek islands yesterday from Bodrum, a resort town south of İzmir. Elsewhere, soldiers patrolling Turkey’s border with Bulgaria stopped 73 illegal migrants from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan as they tried to sneak into Bulgaria from the Turkish province of Kırklareli yesterday.