At least 46 people, including 17 children, drowned Friday in the Aegean Sea as two smuggling boats sank off different Greek islands.
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“These deaths highlight both the heartlessness and the futility of the growing chorus demanding greater restrictions on refugee access to Europe”, said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International s Europe and Central Asia Programme Director.
The cold and the dangers do not appear to be deterring refugees from trying to reach Europe says BBC Europe correspondent Damian Grammaticas.
“Once again, last night ruthless human smugglers at the Turkish coast crammed dozens of refugees and migrants in risky and unseaworthy vessels and led innocent people, even young children to perish”, the shipping ministry said in a statement.
Under a November deal with the EU, Ankara had already agreed to reduce the number of migrants coming through, but between 2,000 and 3,000 people are still arriving daily in Greece from Turkey.
Also recalling the Greek Coast Guard’s opening fire on a Turkish fisherman in Turkish waters in June 2014, Çıray questioned whether the free movement of Greek boats in Turkish waters was related to Turkey’s renouncement of its territorial claims on 16 islands close to the Turkish coast in the Aegean Sea. “It is a crisis that was born out of the crisis in Syria”. Survivors told the authorities that all passengers were accounted for.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, Turkey has taken in 2.2 million refugees and migrants but poor living conditions in the country has seen many try to reach Europe by boat. “If we cooperate, we can bring this crisis under control”.
Davutoglu praised Merkel for her open-door stance, saying the steps she took “will go down in history”.
Separately, the Turkish coastguard found the bodies of three children on Friday after a third boat sank near the seaside resort of Didim, the Dogan news agency reported.
In a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kerry said the summit would also seek to increase the number of regular humanitarian donor countries by 10 and to at least double the number of refugees who are resettled or allowed other safe and legal channels of admission.
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“Common sense has prevailed”, Orban said on state radio, calling the Austrian decision “the most important news of the past months”. Authorities said the survivors’ estimates of how many people had been on board varied from about 40 to 70, so it was unclear how many people were missing.
