ANKARA, (MILLAT/APP/AFP) – Eleven people drowned and
four were missing after a migrant boat sank off Turkey’s Aegean coast on Friday, local media reported.
The bodies of the dead were found on a shore in the western province
of Aydin, the private Dogan news agency reported.
Seven others were found alive on the inflatable dinghy, the agency
said.
The drownings come less than a week after the first anniversary of
the EU-Turkey agreement to halt migrant arrivals in Europe, which sharply reduced the number of crossings to the bloc from Turkey.
But Ankara has raised alarms in Brussels by threatening in recent
weeks to scrap the agreement, which came into force after an estimated 1.26 million migrants reached Europe in 2015.
Europe and Turkey are locked in a bitter dispute after Turkish
ministers were blocked from campaigning on the continent for a “yes” vote in next month’s referendum on boosting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers.
According to the International Organization for Migration, there were
around 363,000 migrant arrivals in Greece in 2016 after the Turkey-EU accord.
Under the deal, Turkey undertook to tighten its maritime borders and
break up the people-smuggling networks that had helped migrants to make the risky crossing in exchange for billions of euros in support for refugees in Turkey.
Ankara has also criticised the EU for failing to fulfil its promise
to give visa-free travel in the Schengen zone to Turks as part of the agreement.