Thirty-four migrants and one trafficker were in a high-speed boat when it ran into a Turkish coast guard vessel off northwest Turkey on Sunday, Sept. 7. Five people died. A woman was severely wounded, and a search was still under way for one missing person.
The governor’s office said the collision happened off the Badavut coast in Ayvalik district. According to the Balikesir governorate, all aboard the migrant boat went into the water. “As a result of the search and rescue operations in the region, it was determined that 5 people who fell into the sea lost their lives. One person, a woman, was severely wounded and sent to hospital,” the office said in a statement.
The Ayvalik prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation.
A short crossing
Ayvalik lies on Turkey’s Aegean coast, near the Greek island of Lesvos. At the narrowest point it is just eight nautical miles from Greek soil, where migrants can make asylum claims in the European Union. The Turkish Coast Guard regularly rescues or intercepts people there. Last December it picked up 57 irregular migrants from four inflatable boats in the area. Those survivors said the Hellenic Coast Guard had pushed them across the boundary line, a claim human rights groups often raise and Greece strongly disputes.
Fewer people take the Aegean route than once did, but it is still dangerous. Daily Sabah reported that two migrants were found dead the previous week on beaches on Rhodes, across from the Turkish port of Marmaris.
Sources
- Five Dead in Collision Between Migrant Boat and Turkish Coast Guard Vessel
- Migrant Boat Collides With Turkish Coast Guard Vessel
