Around 40 people - including children - died as a boat on its way to Greece capsized off the coast of Ayvacik district, Canakkale, Turkey on Saturday Jan. 30.
Mehmet Ünal Şahin, the mayor of Ayvacık, said that the locals were awakened by the sound of the migrants' screams. He added that they have been attempting rescue ever since, and that the task at hand is made challenging due to the distance of the coast - the 80-kilometer-long coast across from Lesbos.
The 17 meter boat carrying a minimum of 120 people was said to have hit rocks very soon after it left the shore, according to Saim Eskioglu, deputy governor for the coastal Canakkale province. He also reported there to have been almost 10 children among the dead, with four of them babies of one or two years. The migrants are supposedly of Syrian, Afghan and Myanmar origin.
This is the latest tragedy in a series of tragedies where refugees have died trying to escape war torn areas to migrate to Europe or other neighboring countries. Two days ago saw the drowning of 25 migrants (which included 10 children) off the Greek island of Samos.
Over one million migrants and refugees came to the European Union during the course of the last year. Around 36,000 are said to have died or gone missing. This has led to the EU being forced to consider keeping its Schengen open-borders area for another two years. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been under pressure for her welcoming position towards asylum seekers, stressed to a meeting of a members of her Christian Democratic Union party that the refugees were to be expected to go home once the war was over.
It is estimated that almost 500,000 refugees from the five year long war in Syria have migrated through Turkey, and then put themselves in danger trying to reach the Greek Islands in 2015. 2.5 million Syrian refugees are taking asylum in Turkey. International Organization for Migration (IOM) says 4,000 people died in efforts to reach Europe by sea last year, and that 244 migrants died at sea during the first 28 days of this New Year alone.
