17 dead as boat sinks off Turkey

At least 10 people were killed when a boat carrying migrants sank off Turkey’s Aegean Sea coast on Sunday, the media reported.

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

According to the global Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 350,000 migrants – many of them Syrian – have landed in Greece this year via Turkey.

The Turkish coastguard recovered the bodies from a wooden boat that had set off from Turkish holiday resort town of Bodrum for the Greek island of Leros, the Dogan news agency reported.

The boat was carrying 37 people when it capsized shortly after leaving the Bodrum peninsula on Sunday.

The bodies of the deceased have been brought to Bodrum’s Turgutreis harbor.

With several Greek islands within a few miles, thousands of people are attempting the risky journey every day.

The tragedy came as the Italian coastguard launched seven operations in the Mediterranean over the weekend, plucking some 500 migrants from the water.

“Saturday was quiet on the whole but now there is further movement”, a spokesperson told AFP news agency. They were rescued about 80km off the Libyan coast. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that his government plans to seal its border with Croatia, in the same way that it has sealed the border with Serbia.

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