News / EU

35 refugees drown in Aegean off Turkey en route to Europe

Monday, 08 February 2016 2:06 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 09 February 2016 12:04 PM ]

Volunteers pull a raft packed with refugees as they arrive on a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos, January 29, 2016. ©Reuters

At least 35 refugees have drowned in two separate accidents in the Aegean Sea as they attempted to cross from Turkey to Greece, media reports say.

In the latest incident, at least two dozen refugees lost their lives on Monday when their boat sank off the district of Edremit in the western Turkish province of Balikesir in an apparent bid to reach the Greek island of Lesbos, Dogan news agency reported.

The accident came shortly after 11 asylum seekers died after another boat capsized off the Turkish port city of Izmir.

It was not immediately clear how many asylum seekers had been on board the doomed boats. However, reports said Turkish coast guard saved at least seven people in the search and rescue operations.

Nearly 40 refugees drowned off another part of the Turkish coast on January 30.

The latest casualties came as German Chancellor Angela Merkel met senior Turkish officials in the capital Ankara for talks on reducing the influx of refugees and asylum seekers to Europe.

Refugees walk to a waiting bus after arriving on a rubber dinghy on a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos, January 29, 2016. (Reuters photo)

Turkey has become a launching point for refugees trying to make it into Greece and Italy. Most of the refugees then try to reach Germany through the Balkan states.

Back in November last year, the Turkish government reached a deal with the European Union to stem the flow of refugees in return for USD 3.2 billion in financial aid.

However, the agreement has so far failed to check the tide of refugee arrivals. Senior authorities in Ankara say they are working on new legal measures to ban human smuggling as an act of terror and organized crime.

Europe is facing an unprecedented influx of refugees, most of whom are fleeing conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East, particularly Syria.

European officials are struggling to forge a united response to the problem amid harsh measures taken by some EU members.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said some 62,200 people crossed the Mediterranean in January. The number of refugees who perished in the Mediterranean in January alone topped 360.

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