Nine Syrian refugees, including seven children, trying to reach Europe drowned on Sunday when their speedboat sank off Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, state media reported.
The boat, with 15 persons on board, hit trouble off the Demre district of Turkey’s Mediterranean Antalya province, the Anadolu news agency said, adding that 6 were saved.
One woman, a man and seven children lost their lives in the sinking, with the oldest child aged 14 and the youngest just three, according to the agency.
The Dogan news agency said they were seeking to head illegally to Europe but their planned route was not immediately clear.
The nearest EU territory is the small Greek island of Kastellorizo to the west which lies off the Turkish resort of Kas.
Over a million people, many fleeing the war in Syria, crossed Greece from Turkey in 2015 after the onset of the bloc’s worst migration crisis since the Second World War.
Turkey struck a deal with the EU in 2016 in an effort to stem the flow of migrants, and agreed to take back illegal migrants landing on Greek islands in exchange for incentives, including financial aid.
The deal sharply curbed the number of migrants seeking to cross from Turkey to Greece, however observers say that the numbers seeking to use this route have been rising again in recent months.
According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), almost 11,000 people crossed to Greece this year up to May 30, sharply more than in the same period in 2017.
35 people lost their lives using this route so far this year, the IOM says.
