24 Nov 2024
Sunday 27 September 2015 - 16:49
Story Code : 182065

17 Syrian refugees die off Turkish coast: Official

Seventeen Syrian refugees struggling to reach Greece have drowned after their boatsank off the Turkish coast, an official says.

According to Gov. Amir Cicek of the Turkish southwestern province of Mugla, the Turkish Coast Guard pulled 20 other Syrian refugees from the water on Sunday, the state-run Anadolu News Agency reported.

The Syrian asylum seekers are said to have set off from the holiday resort of Gumusluk on the Bodrum Peninsula.

Turkish officials have launched a probe into the deadly incident.

Sundays incident is the latest in a string of boat sinking in the Aegean Sea that has cost hundreds of lives and came days after a five-year-old Syrian girl lost her life on the way from Turkey to Greece in the east of the Greek island of Lesbos.

The island has so far seen a heavy flooding of Syrian refugees fleeing war and execution in Syria, while many of them have died trying to cross the Aegean Sea.

Earlier in September, heart-wrenching photos of Aylan Kurdi, a little Syrian asylum seeker, lying dead face-down emerged and drew worlds attention to the plight of refugees. The three-year-olds body was washed up on a beach in Turkey after the boat carrying his family to the Greek island of Kos sank.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="555"] A young Syrian refugee cries after disembarking from the Greek government-chartered Eleftherios Venizelos ferry at the Piraeus port in Athens on August 20, 2015. AFP[/caption]

More than 300,000 refugees have entered Greece so far in 2015, with most of them passing through to other European countries.

Over 2,600 refugees have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea since January, according to the latest figures released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Most of the asylum seekers who risk their lives to reach Europe are reportedly fleeing conflict-hit zones in Africa and the Middle East.

By Press TV
https://theiranproject.com/vdcb05b8srhbwgp.4eur.html
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