Back in the deep
CLAMBERING into a small inflatable dinghy in the middle of the night, eight desperate refugees push off from the beach hoping to make the perilous six-mile journey to Europe.
But just minutes after paddling into the pitch-black sea, the young men’s excitement turns to panic and horror as the dangerously overloaded yellow boat begins to take on water and sink.
What makes these dramatic images so astonishing is that they were taken on the same stretch of Turkey’s coastline where the body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed up just hours earlier after the dinghy his family was in sank.
These men were luckier. They were rescued by Turkish coastguard officers with just seconds to spare before the boat capsized.
Astonishingly, the coastguard deals with the migrants by noting their names and taking their pictures – then releasing them. And the men are soon ready to try again.
One of those who was saved, Sadik Korkut, 25, from Damascus, said: ‘Even if we are banned ten times, even if we sink ten times, we will definitely get to Europe.’
The fact that they even attempted the same dangerous voyage which 24 hours earlier had claimed the lives of 12 Syrians – including Aylan, his brother Galip, five, and their mother Rehan, 35 – demonstrates the desperation to get from Bodrum to the Greek island of Kos.
For these migrants are not alone. The Turkish coastguard has saved around 85 people in a series of failed crossings from the beach in the nights since the world’s conscience was pricked by Aylan’s death.
Sixteen members of one Syrian family – including seven women and three children, who had fled war-ravaged Damascus – were rescued in the early hours of yesterday after the engine of their 10ft fibreglass boat cut out, leaving them drifting for four hours. Now, with the eyes of the world on Turkey, which has a £15billion tourism industry, the authorities have stepped up security along the coastline. It was claimed last night that
‘Even if we sink ten times we will try again’
on Friday, armed police removed 150 refugees in Bodrum town centre to deport them to Syria.
Ercan Veranlar, editor of Bodrum newspaper Olay, said: ‘They put them on seven minibuses. They will be taken by bus to eastern Turkey and deported across the border.’
Mr Veranlar’s account could not be independently verified last night, but there were noticeably fewer migrants in Bodrum town centre yesterday compared to earlier in the week, when they begged tourists for money and washed and slept in
the streets. But the Turks do not expect the human tide to abate.
A spokesman for Bodrum mayor Mehmet Kocadon said: ‘It is a bad situation for Bodrum and for Turkey but there is seemingly nothing we can do.’
He added: ‘They are risking death in order to pursue their dreams of a new life in Europe.’