Turkish coast guard recovers 5 migrant bodies after shipwreck, nearly a dozen feared missing: officials

Turkey’s coast guard recovered the bodies of five migrants whose boat carrying 31 passengers wrecked off the Turkish coast on Saturday morning, officials said.

The UN refugee agency said Turkish authorities rescued 11 other people from a partially submerged boat, while Greece’s coast guard found five migrants safe on the island of Farmkonisi in the Aegean Sea.

Reuters reported that the Turkish coast guard responded to the area shortly before 6:30 a.m. local time after learning about a vessel taking to the water. A child was among 11 people rescued from a “half-submerged boat” in Turkish waters, officials said.

Rescuers told authorities that there were 31 passengers on board the boat, according to the outlet.

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The search for the remaining passengers continued on Sunday as rescuers battled bad weather.

Greece’s Hellenic Coast Guard said Turkish authorities recovered five bodies in the Aegean Sea and rescued 11 other people on board a partially submerged ship. Greek authorities rescued five migrants on a nearby island, while the remaining passengers are missing. (Hellenic Coast Guard)

Farmkonisi is located about 12 miles off the coast of Didim, a small coastal town in southwest Turkey.

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The latest migrant shipwreck comes two weeks after a wooden boat sailing from Turkey ran into a sandbank at sea off a beach in Calabria, the toe of the Italian peninsula. At least 79 migrants died, while 80 others survived and an undetermined number were missing and presumed dead.

Police check a fishing boat with around 500 migrants on board in the southern Italian port of Crotone early Saturday. The Italian coast guard was responding to three smugglers’ boats carrying more than 1,300 migrants “at risk” off Italy’s southern coast. (AP Photo/Valeria Ferraro)

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Meanwhile, more than 1,300 migrants have been rescued since Friday in three separate missions in the Mediterranean off Italy’s southern tip, Italian officials said.