33 Migrants Drown as Boat Hits Rocks, Sinks Off Turkey Coast
Source: New York Times
A boat smuggling migrants to Greece slammed into rocks off the Turkish coast Saturday and capsized, killing at least 33 people including five children, as the choppy Aegean Sea continued to claim asylum-seekers' lives this month at an appalling pace, officials said.
Coast guard officials said they rescued 75 people from the 17-meter (56-foot) vessel but government officials said they suspected more were trapped inside the sunken vessel and the death toll was likely to rise. Video footage on the Turkish shoreline showed police walking among bodies of several dead as they washed ashore, among them a toddler lying on his back in navy blue clothing.
The International Organization for Migration says drowning deaths are running at four times the rate of 2015, when many thousands daily sought to enter the European Union via Turkey by reaching one of more than a dozen offshore Greek islands, particularly nearby Lesbos.
Ayvacik's mayor, Mehmet Unal Sahin, said most of the migrants were Syrians. The state-run Anadolu Agency said the boat also bore natives of Afghanistan and Myanmar. A private Turkish news agency, Dogan, said police arrested a Turkish man suspected of being the smuggler who organized Saturday's disastrous sea crossing.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/01/30/world/europe/ap-eu-europe-migrants.html?_r=0