£1,2OO TO GRAB YOUR PLACE ON A FLOATING DEATH TRAP

The pretty Turkish beach where two Syrian boys drowned this week as their family struggled to reach the West is a death trap for migrants. By day, tourists lie on sunbeds and buy cocktails from a nearby restaurant, The Mermaid. At night, the place is transformed into a people-trafficking hub, where migrants are pushed out to sea on flimsy boats, not knowing if they will live or die.

Two weeks ago, at three in the morning, I stood on the beach and watched as nine Syrians jumped into a tiny inflatable dinghy, paddling off towards the twinkling lights of the Greek island of Kos, clearly visible 12 miles away.

Within a few minutes, the four-seater dinghy was buckling under their weight, letting in water over the sides, and sinking fast. The men on board were using pathetically inadequate plastic oars to row against the fierce waves, and a strong current.

The boat swung round in a wide circle, nearly crashing into a wooden pier. Two little girls cowering on board, aged about seven and dressed in heavy pink coats but without life-jackets, began to scream with terror in the darkness.

By some miracle, after ten heart-stopping minutes, the craft was blown back to shore and a tragedy averted. The bedraggled migrants climbed off, running down the beach road before vanishing into an overgrown field.

All they left on the sand was the deflating dinghy, two car tyre inner tubes used as cheap buoyancy aids, a few black plastic bags of T-shirts, and two unopened tins of Spam.

The overgrown field beside Ali hoca Point beach – where the bodies of brothers Galip, five, and Aylan, three, washed up on Tuesday – is where migrants wait to be allocated a seat on a boat after being driven by traffickers from the town of Bodrum 14 miles away.

here, traffickers inflate the boats, which they buy in bulk for £60 each and bring on vans from Bodrum during the day.

A trafficker named Mohammed told me that he sent out about six boats a night ‘whatever the weather’. In his 20s and from Pakistan, he added: ‘The Syrians, they want to go, so we send them. They do not want to stay here in Turkey.’

Another trafficker, a 33-year- old Syrian based in Bodrum, said the stretch of coastline near Ali hoca Point had become a favourite for the smuggling gangs. ‘There are 100 launching points along there, and – so far – the authorities have not caught up with us. We charge £1,200 for a place on a boat, but nothing for children under ten.’

As for the migrants, they are trapped. After paying the trafficking gangs up front for the journey to Kos, they then hope to travel on a ferry to mainland Greece, and up to cities in Britain, Germany, holland or Scandinavia to begin a new life.

Predominantly Muslim, they are escaping a civil war being waged by the Syrian government against the murderous Islamic State. Not wanting to return to Syria or settle in Turkey, they can only go forward – even if it means the terrifying sea journey across the Aegean.

One migrant, 27-year- old design student hassan Ahmadi, from Damascus in Syria, told me near the beach: ‘We were afraid at home with the war. Now we are afraid of the traffickers. They have guns, they are a mafia, so we go where they say. They do not look after our lives. We are only more money to them as they push another boat off into the sea.’

Yet he was still determined to go, even though he – like many of the migrants – cannot swim.

In the week I visited, five migrants, including a child, drowned when their boat overturned. Now, the death toll has risen again with reportedly as many as 13, including the two boys, drowned in the latest disaster.

The owner of The Mermaid restaurant, Veysi Aslan, said yesterday: ‘At 4am last week, I spotted some migrants in the sea. I jumped into the water, almost drowning as one of them clutched my neck so hard to stay above water. I still managed to bring him to shore, but I was very upset.’

He added: ‘I see little boats with a capacity for a few people carrying 12 or 13. The traffickers here on this beach are Pakistani and Syrian, operating for maximum profit. They do not care about the migrants.’

Celal, a water sports instructor at the nearby Armonia hotel, added: ‘The traffickers are greedy. They put too many people in patched-up old boats, which are unreliable. They do not provide life-jackets, although most of the Syrians cannot swim and are not dressed suitably for such a sea journey.’

Some of the female migrants wear Islamic head- dresses, and sometimes robes, which soak up water easily, weighing them down if they fall in the sea.

Celal said the coastguard was not cracking down hard on the traffickers. ‘This Monday, I saw a man on a jet-ski trying to smuggle Syrians to the other side. he was spotted by the coastguard, and was told to go back to the beach.

‘he dropped the Syrian into the water, and brought the jet-ski back to shore. But he was not interviewed or charged.’

Celal said he had German visitors at the hotel recently. ‘They had booked for a week, but on the second day they woke to screams of drowning migrants from the beach. They came out of their rooms at the noise, and helped us locals to pull dead bodies out of the water.

‘Although the Germans had paid for five days more, they just checked out and left.’

Last night, the Turkish authorities arrested four Syrian traffickers, thought to be the senior gang members who arranged for the two young brothers and their parents to travel from Bodrum to the beach.

Once there, the sailings are run by the more junior Pakistani trafficker I encountered, Mohammed. he is responsible, with his gang, for putting migrants on boats and pushing them out to sea.

‘Some days up to 100 dinghies are sent off by this man and his beach gang,’ said Mr Aslan. ‘Last summer only one or two boats left every two or three weeks. The minimum number of boats I now see on the sea is 50 daily. It is never-ending.’

When I spoke to Mohammed, he boasted that he was responsible for putting migrants on the boats, and I watched him do so.

My last sight at Ali hoca beach was the Pakistani trafficker and his gang dragging the water-logged inflatable, on which the nine Syrians had nearly drowned, up the beach and into the overgrown field.

No doubt the little craft was used again – perhaps even on the same night – to send yet more migrants into desperate peril on the sea.