Almost 40 Greece-bound migrants drown off Turkey

Almost 40 Greece-bound migrants drown off Turkey
January 30, 2016 - 17:01 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Almost 40 people drowned and 75 others were rescued after a boat carrying migrants to Greece sank off Turkey's western coast, Reuters cited a local mayor and Turkish news agency Dogan as saying on Saturday, January 30.

The Turkish coast guard was continuing search and rescue efforts where the boat sank off the coast of Ayvacik, a town across from the Greek island of Lesvos. It was not immediately clear how many migrants had been on board.

"Local people woke up to the sound of screaming migrants and we have been carrying out rescue work since dawn. We have an 80-kilometre-long coast just across from Lesvos, which is very hard to keep under control,"Mehmet Unal Sahin, the mayor of Ayvacik, told CNNTurk news channel by phone.

At least five of those who died were children, the Dogan news agency said, and rescued migrants were hospitalized with hypothermia symptoms. It said the migrants were of Syrian, Afghan and Myanmar origin.

More than one million refugees and migrants arrived by land and sea in the European Union last year and some 3,600 died or went missing.

Turkey is the first stop on Syrian migrants' journey to the European Union.

Related links:
Reuters. More than 30 dead after migrant boat sinks off Turkey
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