Nine migrants, including two children, drown off Turkey’s Aegean coast

İZMİR – Doğan News Agency

AA photo

Nine migrants, including two children, died when their boat sank off Turkey’s Aegean coast on Feb. 2.

Security forces were informed about migrants on the Seferihisar shore of the Aegean İzmir province. Eleven migrants who were waiting on the shore said the fiber boat sank due to the waves.

The boat set off from Seferihisar in an apparent bid to reach Greece. The Turkish Coast Guard started the search after being alerted by two survivors who swam ashore.

Turkish Coast Guard recovered the bodies of nine migrants, including two children, from the sea, while two migrants were also rescued while swimming during search and rescue operations.

Geographically located between war-torn Syria and Iraq in the southeast and the EU member states of Bulgaria and Greece in the northwest, Turkey has become a transition point for migrants looking to illegally cross into the EU, fleeing the violence in Iraq and Syria and seeking a higher standard of living.

The wave of migration across the Aegean Sea has often resulted in injuries and deaths due to either the capsizing of migrant-carrying boats or abuse of migrants by human traffickers.

Turkey reached an agreement with the European Union in November 2015 to stem the flow of migrants bound for European countries in return for 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) in financial assistance, but the agreement has failed to check the tide of arrivals to Europe.