Five migrants die as boat sinks off Turkey coast

Eleven people rescued after dinghy sank in Aegean Sea, with five more found on nearby island

Turkey’s coastguard said it arrived at the scene after learning a boat was taking in water at 6.20am. It rescued 11 people, including a child, and brought them to Didim port to hand them off to health personnel.
Turkey’s coastguard said it arrived at the scene after learning a boat was taking in water at 6.20am. It rescued 11 people, including a child, and brought them to Didim port to hand them off to health personnel.

Five migrants died when a dinghy sank off the coast of southwest Turkey on Saturday, the coastguard said, adding that it had rescued 11 people. Greece said five more migrants from the same wreck were found on a nearby island.

Turkey’s coastguard said it had arrived at the scene after learning that a boat was taking in water at 6.20am. It rescued 11 people, including a child, and brought them to Didim port to hand them off to health personnel.

Stopping the ‘small boats’ is key to Sunak’s plan to avoid electoral annihilationOpens in new window ]

The Greek coastguard said it was informed by Turkey about those rescued from a “half-sunken dinghy” in Turkish waters. It said five people were found alive on the island of Farmakonisi, some 19km (12 miles) off the coast of Didim.

Those rescued said there were a total of 31 people on the boat, the Greek coastguard added. Both the Turkish and Greek coastguards said search-and-rescue operations were continuing.

READ MORE

Further west in the Mediterranean, more than 1,300 migrants have been rescued in three separate operations off the southern tip of Italy, the Italian coastguard said, two weeks after at least 74 people died when their boat hit rocks near the coast. - Reuters