At least 11 migrants drown off Turkey

At least 27 refugees were killed as the boat in which they were traveling capsized off Turkey’s Edremit Bay on Monday, media reports said.

Separately, the private Dogan news agency said 11 migrants died and three were rescued when another boat sank further south off the coast of Dikili in the province of Izmir.

It took only four days this February for more migrants and refugees to arrive in Greece and Italy than the number who arrived in all of February 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The coastguard has launched a search-and-rescue mission, including helicopters, to try to find 14 more migrants reported to be still missing.

Hundreds of migrants have died after setting off from this stretch of Turkey’s coast.

News of the deaths comes as Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is in Turkey to discuss ways of reducing the number of migrants travelling to Europe.

The boat departed from Turkey’s western Balikesir province, in an area that’s become a popular launching point for refugees leaving for the European Union, reports the Anadolu Agency, “with many Greek islands lying within sight of the Turkish coast”.

The IOM says close to 69,000 people have already arrived on Greek shores so far this year, despite often stormy conditions, compared to nearly 854,000 in the whole of last year.