(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
ANKARA: Twenty-two migrants drowned and 200 more were rescued when a boat capsized in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish coast while trying to reach the Greek island of Kos on Tuesday local media said.
The boat went down off the coast of the Datca peninsula not far from the resort town of Bodrum where the drowned body of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi washed up two weeks ago in a tragic image that shocked people around the world.
Television footage showed a crowded Turkish coastguard ship carrying rescued people to the shore. No one was immediately available for comment at the coastguard.
Dogan news agency said the group was traveling to Kos in a 20-metre (66-foot) wooden boat. Turkey houses more than 2 million refugees and tens of thousands have taken boats from its coast on their way to Europe.
On Sunday 34 people died including 15 babies and children when another wooden boat capsized off the Greek island of Farmakonisi.
In Europe's worst migration crisis since World War Two the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR expects at least 850000 people to head to the continent this year many of them fleeing Syria's four-year civil war.
Reuters