The small boat was carrying 13 Pakistani and Iraqi refugees to the Greek island of Kos when it sank off the Aegean resort town of Bodrum, Xinhua quoted state-run Dogan news agency as saying.
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Eighteen people died, including children, after a migrant boat headed for Greece sank near south Turkey on Friday (local time). The refugees were travelling overnight to the Greek island of Kalymnos.
Twenty others who had planned to make the trip decided against the idea after seeing the vessel was an old wooden boat rather than the yacht they had been promised, according to Turkish media.
Some 650,000 migrants, often from Iraq and Syria, have tried to cross the Aegean Sea this year in search of better lives in the European Union.
While a few European leaders support an open-door refugee policy, others are in favor of controlling the EU’s external borders, deporting more people and paying third countries to keep asylum seekers on their soil.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 801 919 people have arrived in Greece by sea from the beginning of the year until December 17, with another 4256 having arrived by land.
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The IOM estimates the one million mark will be reached by Tuesday, more than four times the total of 240,000 crossings by land and sea into Europe previous year.
