Almost 40 dead after migrant boat sinks off Turkey
Almost 40 people drowned and 75 were rescued after a boat carrying migrants to Greece sank off Turkey's western coast on January 30, according to local officials and the Turkish Dogan news agency.
More than one million refugees and migrants arrived in the European Union last year and some 3,600 died or went missing, forcing the EU to mull suspending its Schengen open-borders area for up to two years.
The Turkish coast guard was continuing search and rescue efforts where the 17-metre boat carrying at least 120 people sank off the coast of Ayvacik, a town across from the Greek island of Lesvos, the Dogan news agency reported.
At least five of those who died were children, Dogan reported, while rescued migrants were hospitalized with hypothermia symptoms. It said the migrants were of Syrian, Afghan and Myanmar origin.
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Merkel told a meeting of a members of her Christian Democratic Union party on January 30 that despite efforts to help refugees, it was important to stress that they had only been given permission for a limited stay.
Around 500,000 refugees from the five-year-old war in Syria traveled through Turkey and then risked their lives at sea to reach Greek islands in 2015.
Under pressure from the European Commission about delays, Greece expects to have four of five "hot spot" centers for processing migrants operational in about two weeks, its migration minister said in a newspaper interview published on January 30.
Neighboring Turkey is hosting 2.5 million Syrian refugees. In November it struck a deal with the EU pledging to help stem the flow of migrants to Europe in return for 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in financial aid and renewed talks on joining the 28-nation bloc.
