Six Afghan children drowned after a rubber dinghy carrying migrants to Greece sank off Turkey’s Aegean coast on Tuesday, the state-run news agency reported.
Five other migrants, including a 12-year-old boy, were rescued from the sea off the resort of Cesme, and were found floating in lifejackets, Anadolu Agency said. Rescuers were searching for two other migrants who were reported missing, AP reported.
The Turkish coastguard recovered the bodies of the six children. Anadolu did not report their ages, but said one of them was a baby.
The migrants were apparently hoping to make it to the island of Chios from the resort of Cesme despite bad weather. More than 700,000 migrants have crossed into Greece this year, many fleeing conflict in Syria or Iraq.
