12 dead after migrant boat sinks off Turkey

Twelve people died after a boat carrying migrants sank off southwestern Turkey on Monday, the coastguard said.

Thirty-one migrants were rescued after the boat went down off the coast of Bodrum district in Mugla province, the coastguard added, with search and rescue efforts continuing.

The nationality of the migrants was not immediately known. The incident took place a few kilometres from the Greek island of Kos.

Home to three million Syrian refugees and up to 300,000 Iraqis who have fled conflict, Turkey is a transit country for migrants trying to reach Europe.

Numbers have dropped since hitting a peak in 2015 when over a million people arrived in Greece from Turkey, mostly via boats, during the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War.

But a March 2016 deal between Ankara and the European Union helped staunch the flow.

Arrivals on the Greek islands were 875,000 in 2015, dropping to under 40,000 per year in 2017 and 2018, according to EU border force Frontex.

Between January and June this year, 555 migrants died attempting to cross the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration. The figure was 924 last year with a peak of 2,911 deaths recorded in 2016.

Several hundred Bosnians protested on Sunday against an influx of migrants in the western border town of Bihac, warning of security and health risks from thousands sleeping rough.

Bosnia, spared the big migrant wave of 2015, is now seeing an influx of people trying to reach wealthier nations via neighbouring Croatia, a European Union member. About 25,000 people from Asia and North Africa entered the Balkan country from Serbia and Montenegro last year, and about 9,000 have arrived this year.

Around 6,000 are in Bihac and Velika Kladusa, two towns bordering Croatia, but only about 3,500 have been sheltered in four transit centres there.

Others sleep in parks and abandoned buildings.

“I came here to express dissatisfaction with the situation politicians have brought upon both us and migrants,” said Maja Tabakovic, 35, at the peaceful rally in the main square.

“The whole town is feeling insecure.” Town authorities have long called on Bosnia’s national government to lift the burden from the border area and accommodate migrants elsewhere.

Agencies