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5 Children Among Dead as Migrant Boat Capsizes Off Turkey 10 Children Among the Dead as a Migrant Boat Capsizes Off Turkey
(about 3 hours later)
ANKARA, Turkey — A boat smuggling migrants to Greece slammed into rocks off the Turkish coast on Saturday and capsized, killing at least 35 people, including five children, government officials said. GENEVA — One photo showed a small boy, perhaps 3 years old, dressed for a mild winter — dark blue pants and coat, a sky blue sweater for extra protection. The grown-up who had dressed him for the journey — barely five miles across the Aegean Sea — had cared enough to put on matching socks, with little blue cars. The boy was lying face up on the rocks. A winter hat, sky blue with a white pom-pom, covered his lifeless face.
Coast guard officials said they had rescued 75 people from the 56-foot vessel, but one government official said that more bodies were spotted inside the sunken boat but remained inaccessible to divers. The little boy was among 37 people — most of them believed to be Syrians fleeing war and trying to reach European shores — who died when their boat capsized on Saturday and washed up on the rocky shoals of the Turkish coast. At least 10 children died in the accident, according to reports from The Associated Press, which came as the rival parties in Syria were in Geneva, squabbling over the terms of sitting down for peace talks.
Video footage on the Turkish shoreline showed police officers walking among several bodies as they washed ashore, among them a toddler lying on his back in navy blue clothing on a rocky beach. Another photo showed a Turkish rescue worker carrying a child, slightly older, maybe old enough to be in first grade. He was wearing jeans and a red life jacket. His eyes appeared to be half open, staring at the rescue worker who was putting him into a body bag.
The International Organization for Migration says drowning deaths are running at four times the rate of 2015, when many thousands each day tried to enter the European Union through Turkey by reaching one of more than a dozen Greek islands, particularly Lesbos. The state-run Turkish news agency, Anadolu, reported that their 56-foot-long boat had left Ayvacik, a Turkish resort town, Saturday morning and capsized on the rocks. There were people from Afghanistan and Myanmar on the boat, too, the news agency said.
Saturday’s deaths raise the drowning total for January to above 250. The International Organization for Migration recorded 805 drowning deaths on Turkey-Greece smuggling routes in 2015. Turkish rescue workers had recovered 37 bodies by day’s end. Survivors were taken away. There were no details available on who they were and what happened to cause the accident.
Saim Eskioglu, the deputy governor for Canakkale Province, which includes Ayvacik, said Saturday that the boat “hit rocks soon after it left the coast and, unfortunately, it sank.” All that was certain was that they were among a growing number of people trying to make the crossing in winter time, when the sea is more treacherous.
“There are either three or four more bodies inside the boat, which had two decks,” Mr. Eskioglu said. “The divers are trying to reach them.” On Friday, the International Organization for Migration reported that so far in January, 218 people had drowned in the Aegean Sea as they tried to reach the Greek islands, an entry point into European Union countries. More than two dozen others had died trying to reach Italy.
The state-run Anadolu news agency put the death toll at 39. “Deaths on this route are increasing at an alarming rate,” a spokesman for the agency, Joel Millman, warned on Friday in a news briefing here.
Ayvacik’s mayor, Mehmet Unal Sahin, said most of the migrants were Syrians. The Anadolu agency said that some of the passengers were from Afghanistan and Myanmar. Deaths in the Syrian conflict have also increased at an alarming rate for the past five years, now more than 250,000, according to the United Nations, and still the world powers that are aiding the rivals on the battlefield have shown little interest in calling for a truce.
In a statement, the Turkish coast guard said that it had dispatched three boats, a team of divers and a helicopter after receiving calls for help, and that the search-and-rescue operation was continuing. The latest and perhaps most concentrated efforts began this past week, with the United Nations inviting representatives from both government and opposition camps to come to Geneva and start talking.
A private Turkish news agency, Dogan, said the police had arrested a Turkish man suspected of being the smuggler who organized the sea crossing. But those talks have been bogged down over how to hold the meetings. Until Friday, the main opposition balked at coming at all and said it would send a delegation only to talk to the United Nations envoy, Staffan de Mistura, about what they demanded of the Syrian government before any direct negotiations with it.
Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, said the rate of deaths on Turkey-Greece human trafficking routes was “increasing at an alarming rate.” Under American pressure, they arrived on Saturday night. Their first meeting with Mr. de Mistura was expected to take place on Sunday afternoon.
Mr. Millman added that the rate of fatalities was running exceptionally high compared with the rate for 2015. The government delegation met with the mediator on Friday, and left without saying anything about addressing the opposition’s demands. The government regards many members of the opposition bloc as terrorists.
Turkey, which is home to an estimated 2.5 million refugees from Syria, in November agreed to try to break up smuggling networks and stem the flow of migrants into Europe. In return, the European Union pledged $3.25 billion to help improve the refugees’ conditions. The main knot in the talks is whether to discuss the future of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. The United States and Russia, though they have invested heavily in getting those meetings off the ground, remain at odds over Mr. Assad, a key ally of Russia in the region.
The country says it has started rejecting Syrians who arrive without valid visas via third countries. It also has started to grant work permits to Syrians as an incentive for them to stay in Turkey. The regional powers fueling the war are at even greater odds. Iran has sent a stream of fighters to aid Mr. Assad’s army. Saudi Arabia and Turkey have had the single-minded goal of removing Mr. Assad from power.
In December, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said that he hoped that the diplomatic efforts to end the Syrian conflict would not be “dependent on the fate of one man.”