At least 27 refugees were killed as the boat in which they were traveling capsized off Turkey’s Edremit Bay on Monday, media reports said. After meeting Merkel, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Germany and Turkey would seek the use of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation resources in the Aegean Sea and on the Syrian border to help handle the flow of migrants. More than 800.000 migrants, mostly fleeing war and persecution in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have crossed the Mediterranean this year to reach Europe.
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Coast guard teams boosted research in the area, as refugees who have been rescued after the incident said more than 40 people have set sail in the same boat, Turkeys Dogan News Agency reported.
The accident came shortly after 11 migrants died in another boat sinking further south, off the port city of Izmir, also apparently trying to reach Lesbos, the agency said. Three migrants were rescued.
A crackdown on illegal crossing and the unsafe winter conditions have failed to deter tens of thousands from boarding flimsy boats and attempting to cross the Mediterranean in the first few weeks of the year.
Hundreds of migrants have died after setting off from this stretch of Turkey’s coast.
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More than 360 people died in the Mediterranean in January including more than 100 over the final weekend, according to International Organisation for Migration.
