Tragedy as migrant boat sinks off Turkey

Windy weather is making the search for survivors and victims of the capsizing more difficult. Picture: Reuters

The boat was loaded with 42 Afghan illegal migrants, including 12 children and seven women, according to reports. At least seven people were rescued.

The captain is said to have been Turkish and was believed to have been heading for Bulgaria or Romania, but it was unclear where his ship had set out from.

Bodies covered in blankets were laid on a jetty on the European side of the Bosphorus, according to eye witnesses.

“They had life jackets. But there were bodies everywhere. Babies, children … we pulled out 15 to 20 bodies,” fisherman Kadir Serts said.

Rescue worker Ali Saruhan said: “The wind is making our task very difficult. The boat is a very small one. But they were carrying 40 people in it. We are seeing bodies of children floating in the sea.”

Seven coastguard vessels and a helicopter yesterday continued search operations in the Black Sea north of the Bosphorus, the Turkish Coastguard Command said.

Shipping agent GAC said the boat had been heading for the Romanian port of Constanta when it sank at about 5am. It was believed to be carrying around 50 refugees.

The governor’s office said a diving team had been sent to the area. There was no official comment on the number of people travelling on the vessel.

Traffic on the Bosphorus, one of the world’s busiest waterways, was suspended at 10:20am due to the search and rescue operations. It resumed later that morning, GAC said.

Tens of thousands of migrants from Africa, the Middle East and beyond pack into often unsafe boats each year and thousands of them drown in their efforts to enter the European Union through coastal states.

Most of the migration to Europe happens via the Mediterranean Sea. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said last week that an estimated 3,200 migrants had died attempting to cross the Mediterranean this year.

In a statement on its website, the IOM said: “Many of them [are] victims of ruthless criminal gangs seeking to profit from the misery of men, women and children fleeing conflict and oppression.”

About 150,000 “irregular” migrants, many of them from the most troubled nations in Africa and the Middle East, had arrived safely in Europe over the past ten months, it said.

The numbers of migrants have increased since the Arab Spring uprisings triggered unrest across North Africa and civil war in Syria.

The Bosphorus is a vital route for Russian oil and other commodities, as it is the only outlet to the world’s oceans from the Black Sea.

The strait bisects Istanbul, a city of around 15 million people. Poor weather frequently forces its closure in winter.