ISTANBUL – TODAY’S ZAMAN/AP – Dec 08, 2015 – At least six children have drowned after a rubber dinghy carrying Afghan migrants to Greece sank off Turkey’s Aegean coast, Turkish media reported on Tuesday.
The coast guard rescued five migrants from the sea on Tuesday and was still looking for two others reported missing, the Turkish officials said.
The bodies of the children were recovered. The media didn’t report their ages, but said one of them was a baby.
The migrants were apparently hoping to make it to the Greek island of Khios from the Turkish resort town of Çeşme despite bad weather.
A record half a million refugees from a four-year civil war in Syria have traveled through Turkey, then risked their lives in rickety boats to reach nearby Greek islands this year, their first stop in the European Union before continuing to wealthier countries in the north and west of the EU.
Nearly 600 people have died this year on the so-called east Mediterranean Sea route for migrants, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Greece has become the front line of a massive westward population shift from war-ravaged Syria and conflict- or deprivation-plagued countries beyond.
Turkey struck a deal with the EU on Nov. 29 pledging to help stem the flow of migrants into Europe in return for 3 billion euros in cash for the 2.2 million Syrians that Ankara has been hosting, visa liberalization and renewed talks on joining the 28-nation bloc.