A boat carrying migrants has capsized off Turkey's Aegean coast, killing at least nine people, the coast guard said Wednesday. A search and rescue mission was underway for some 25 migrants who are believed to be missing.
The boat with up to 35 migrants on board capsized Monday evening off the Turkish coast, according to a statement by an Iraqi woman who swam back to shore and sought help from Turkish authorities. Her statement to police was obtained by the state-run Anadolu Agency.
The 30-year-old woman boarded the boat at the resort town of Foca, in Izmir province on Monday, together with her husband and their five children, Anadolu reported. There were a total of between 30 and 35 migrants on the boat, she was quoted as telling police.
Her children, who had life vests, went missing when the boat capsized. The woman and her husband started to swim toward the coast, she said, but by Tuesday afternoon her husband could no longer "resist" the waves and died. She was quoted as saying that she was in the water for about 28 hours.
The coast guard said it had dispatched vessels, a plane and a helicopter to search for the missing. The bodies of nine migrants have been recovered so far, it said.
Turkey became one of the main launch points for more than a million migrants taking the sea route to the European Union in 2015, many fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.
The flow of migrants was drastically reduced after a 2016 deal between Ankara and the European Union, after hundreds died crossing to Greek islands a few miles off the Turkish shore.
Mediterranean arrivals to the bloc, including refugees making the longer and more perilous crossing from north Africa to Italy, totalled 172,301 in 2017, down from 362,753 in 2016 and 1,015,078 in 2015, according to United Nations data.
