European migrant crisis: 18 asylum seekers drown off Turkish coast

At least 18 migrants have drowned, when their overcrowded boat was trying to cross from Turkey to Greece.

Eleven people remain missing and 21 have been rescued, the coast guard said Thursday.

Three of those rescued were taken to hospital on Leros island.

According to the UN’s refugee agency, more than 950,000 people in total have reached Europe by sea this year.

The shipwreck occurred off the coast of the Greek island of Farmakonisi, one of the Dodecanese islands, just eight miles from the Turkish coast.

“The weather was not particularly bad but the boat was overloaded as is often the case”, a police official said of Wednesday’s incident, according to AFP news agency. Winter conditions make the journey even more risky. It said 3,692 people have drowned trying to get into Europe.

The Turkish coastguard were hunting for the missing and divers were rushed to the scene after a tip-off that more refugees could be stuck in the deck, Dogan said. In another tragedy on Tuesday 11 migrants drowned.

More than one million migrants and refugees have entered Europe this year, according to an intergovernmental organisation.

Most of the 2,889 deaths this year came on the Mediterranean between north Africa and Italy, IOM said.

The report also noted Belgium’s struggle to manage migrant movements toward Britain, and said the country lacks national legislation to process alerts signaled by the passport-free area’s main database.

IOM today operates in all 28 countries of the European Union, as well as in numerous countries today’s Europe-bound migrants and refugees leave from, and the lands they transit.