The governor of the coastal district in Turkey’s Izmir province, said an initial investigation showed overcrowding caused the accident. The total death toll stands at 61, including 28 children and three babies.
The governor said 46 people had been rescued alive, including the ship’s Turkish captain and assistant, who had been placed under arrest. He added there were no bodies left on the boat, and he did not expect the death toll to rise any further.
Turkish media reported that the high death toll was because the women and children were in a locked compartment in the lower section of the small vessel. Although there have not been any official confirmation of this.
Nine children were among the dead, according to Turkey's Dogan News Agency. Several dozen survivors, mostly from Iraq and Syria, were able to swim through the Aegean waters to shore, only 50 metres away. Survivors had told authorities that some people were trapped below the deck of the submerged vessel, and divers launched an operation to try to find them.
Television footage showed several rescue vessels near the dim outline of the submerged boat, which lay just below the surface of the water. Ambulances waited at the top of a cliff, but there were no indications that anyone else had survived.
The group of migrants had previously made their way to hotels in the city of Izmir, where smugglers agreed to take them to Britain. Authorities arrested two Turkish suspects in the smuggling operation, Turkey's TRT television reported.
TRT earlier quoted Tahsin Kurtbeyoglu, a local administrator, as saying 20 bodies were recovered, but the toll rose through Thursday as more bodies were pulled from within the boat's confines. Those who survived were on the deck, rather than below with other members of their group.
It was not immediately clear when the boat sank, but many such vessels carrying migrants make the journey at night to avoid detection by authorities.
Migrants from Asia and Africa have long sought to reach Europe by passing through Turkey, and their desperate efforts have occasionally ended in disaster. Each year, thousands try to sail to Greek islands from Turkish soil in rickety boats.
Turkey is now hosting 80,000 Syrians who have fled the civil war in their country and are staying in camps just across the border, and some countries are concerned that larger numbers of Syrians could try to reach Europe illegally.
Greece said in July that it was quadrupling the number of guards at its border with Turkey and boosting other defences in part because of worries about a potential influx.
Some non-governmental groups believe migrants, deterred by tighter enforcement on the land border, are now turning back to more dangerous sea routes in their effort to start a life elsewhere.
Friday 7 September 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/video/2012-09/07/c_131833838.htm
http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=792335
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