Two migrants have been left killed and 16 others have gone missing in two separate accidents in the Aegean Sea, when boats heading to Greece from Turkey capsized.
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A few 15 migrants in the boat were rescued while 15 others were missing since last week.
Ali, a 17-year-old migrant from Afghanistan, told Human Rights Watch that a speedboat carrying five masked men with handguns rammed the migrants’ rubber boat as they headed towards the Greek island of Lesbos. We suspected hypothermia as the baby was cold, and his hands and feet were all white.
Shocking footage showing the desperate rescue of the toddler has emerged today. Muhammad was covered with a blanket before being taken to Kusadasi.
The captain of the fishing boat, Recep Evran, is reported to have said, “We saw the baby whose hands were unmoving, stiff like a robot…We were devastated because we thought he was already dead”.
“At first when they approached, we thought they had come to help us”, Ali said.
The child, 18-month-old Muhammad Hasan, is recovering at a hospital and is in good health, according to the Hurriyet Daily News. Ms Halef told local reports the smugglers had promised them a bigger boat than the one they had been forced to take. The witnesses said that the assailants deliberately disabled their boats by damaging or removing the engines or their fuel, or puncturing the hulls of inflatable boats.
The boy;s mother thanked the two fisherman for saving her son’s life.
So far more than 2,600 refugees are known to have drowned while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe in 2015, according to the worldwide Organisation for Migration.
Many of those crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece do not know how to swim and are often equipped with poor-quality life vests, the coastguard said.
Another 53 people made it ashore after the dinghy sank shortly before dawn Sunday in choppy waters, according to an official at the Greek Shipping Ministry.
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“He’s alive, he’s alive”, says Mr Gumran as Mr Evran desperately tries to revive his limp body.
