Five irregular migrants were killed after a boat sank in the Aegean Sea off Türkiye’s southwestern coast on Saturday, the Turkish coast guard said, adding that it had rescued 11 people, including a child. Greek authorities also said five more migrants from the same wreck were found on a nearby island.
Türkiye’s Coast Guard Command said it arrived at the scene after learning that a boat was taking in water at 6:20 a.m. local time. It rescued 11 irregular migrants, mostly African nationals, and brought them to the port of Didim in the Aydın province to hand them off to health personnel.
The Greek coast guard also reported, after being informed by Türkiye about those rescued from a "half-sunken dinghy" in Turkish waters, that five people were found alive on the island of Farmakonisi, some 19 kilometers (12 miles) off the coast of Didim.
Those rescued said there were 31 people on the boat, the Greek coast guard added. Both the Turkish and Greek coast guards said search and rescue operations were continuing.
Further west in the Mediterranean, more than 1,300 migrants were rescued in three separate operations off the southern tip of Italy, the Italian coast guard said Saturday, two weeks after at least 74 people died when their boat hit rocks near the coast.
Sitting right on the cusp of the EU’s easternmost border and home to the biggest refugee community fleeing the war in neighboring Syria, Türkiye attracts illegal migrants from around the world seeking to cross into Europe.
In the east, refugees from Asian countries, particularly Afghanistan, enter from the southeastern borders. Syrian migrants often head to Türkiye’s western Aegean shores to get into Greece, their gateway to Europe, or take the land route in the northwest, into Greece and Bulgaria. Their journeys are complex, and some perish at sea aboard unsafe dinghies. At the same time, in other cases, illegal "pushbacks," beatings and sending migrants back toward Türkiye, even in challenging weather conditions, emerge as principal elements causing deaths in freezing weather.
According to data from the EU Agency for Asylum (EUAA), nearly 1 million people sought asylum in the EU in 2022, the highest since 2016 and surging over 50% over 2021.