Six people, including children, died off the coast of southwestern Turkey when a boat carrying migrants sank on its way to Italy, the Turkish coastguard said on Tuesday.
And the Coast Guard confirmed in a statement, “73 migrants were rescued on board four lifeboats, while searches for five missing persons continued with two boats and a helicopter,” noting that the six dead were “a woman, three children and two infants.”
The statement claimed that the Greek coast guard, who responded to the migrants’ call for help, put them on four lifeboats and left them near Turkish territorial waters, while the latter’s guards “categorically” denied the incident.
According to data published on the Turkish Coast Guard website, more than 30,000 illegal immigrants have been seized so far this year, more than double the number compared to the same period last year.