ANKARA: Seventeen migrants attempting to reach Greece by boat from Turkey have drowned after their boat sank off the Turkish coast. The victims, all thought to be Syrians, included five women and five children, local media said.
They were trapped in the boat’s cabin as it sank, Turkey’s Dogan news agency reported. Another 20 people on the boat’s deck, who were wearing life jackets, survived, the news agency said.
The boat is thought to have set out from the village of Gumusluk near the Turkish resort town of Bodrum, where three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi died earlier this month.
Alan’s death made international headlines when an image of his body washed up on the beach in Bodrum was widely shared.
Some 300,000 or more migrants and refugees have arrived in Greece so far this year, mostly setting off from Turkey’s Aegean coast, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
With several Greek islands within a few miles, thousands of people are attempting the dangerous journey every day.
