ISTANBUL: At least 14 migrants died when their inflatable dinghy capsized in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish resort of Bodrum, the governor’s office said Friday, raising an earlier toll of seven dead.
“The lifeless bodies of 14 irregular migrants were recovered,” the office of the Mugla governorate said on X, saying the coast guard was alerted to the emergency in the early hours of Friday morning.
It said they had found two survivors, one of whom said the boat had been “carrying 18 people” when it started letting on water, sinking just 10 minutes later. One survivor managed to swim to Celebi Island.
One of the survivors was an Afghan national, the governor’s office said without saying where the others were from.
It said four coast guard boats backed by a helicopter and a specialist diving team were looking for the two remaining migrants who were unaccounted for, it said.
Migrant boats are often lost on the short but perilous route between the Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands of Samos, Rhodes and Lesbos that serve as entry points to the European Union.
Bodrum lies close to the Greek island of Kos.
According to the Missing Migrants Project run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), nearly 1,400 migrants have died trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea this year.
At least 14 dead as migrant boat sinks off Turkiye
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At least 14 dead as migrant boat sinks off Turkiye
- At least 14 migrants died when their inflatable dinghy capsized in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish resort of Bodrum, the governor's office said Friday, raising an earlier toll of seven dead
171 bodies found in mass graves in eastern Congo, an official says
- Authorities found two mass graves with at least 171 dead bodies in the Kiromoni and Kavimvira
- M23’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment
KINSHASA: Congolese authorities and a civil society group said Thursday that mass graves were found in part of eastern Congo that the M23 rebel group has recently withdrawn from, as fighting in the region escalates despite a US-mediated peace deal.
The governor of South-Kivu province, Jacques Purusi, said authorities found two mass graves with at least 171 dead bodies in the Kiromoni and Kavimvira neighborhoods on the outskirts of the eastern city of Uvira.
“At this stage, we have identified two sites: one mass grave containing approximately 30 bodies in Kiromoni, not far from the Burundian border on the Congolese side, and another in Kavimvira where 141 bodies were found,” Purusi told The Associated Press over the phone.
The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim. M23’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Executive Secretariat of the Local Network for the Protection of Civilians, a civil society group in the region, said Thursday it wanted to visit the mass graves but was prevented from doing so by the Congolese military.
Information gathered so far indicates that the victims were killed by M23 rebels, said Yves Ramadhani, the group’s vice president.
The governor and the civil society group alleged that the rebels killed the individuals because they suspected them of belonging to the Congolese army or a pro-government militia.
Both the Congolese military and M23 have been accused of extrajudicial killings and abuses by rights groups.
