Published : 19-07-2018
In atragic incident, 19 people died when a boat carrying about 160 migrants sank off the coast of Northern Cyprus.
Rescuers have been searching for some 30 other people, Turkey’s coast guard said on Wednesday.
The bodies of the 19 dead migrants were sent to Turkey's southern province of Adana for autopsy.
Most of the migrants were from war-torn Syria, media reports have said.
103 migrants were rescued by boats and helicopters of the Turkish and northern Cypriot coast guards, helped by commercial boats in the area, from the sunken boat some 30 km (18 miles) off the north Cyprus coast.
Television footage of the passengers’ arrival showed several ambulances arriving at Mersin’s Tasucu harbor, from where they were taken to the Silifke district for treatment.
The coast guard said a Panama-flagged commercial ship spotted the migrant boat some 25 nautical miles from Turkey’s southern province of Antalya and alerted the coast guard on Wednesday morning.
Turkey has become one of the main launch points for thousands of migrants taking the dangerous sea route to the European Union, many fleeing conflict and poverty in the embattled Syrian territories among other Middle Eastern regions.
At least 50 Palestinians from Syria died at sea trying to cross to Europe from the Mediterranean and other launch destinations, according to AGPS statistics.
In atragic incident, 19 people died when a boat carrying about 160 migrants sank off the coast of Northern Cyprus.
Rescuers have been searching for some 30 other people, Turkey’s coast guard said on Wednesday.
The bodies of the 19 dead migrants were sent to Turkey's southern province of Adana for autopsy.
Most of the migrants were from war-torn Syria, media reports have said.
103 migrants were rescued by boats and helicopters of the Turkish and northern Cypriot coast guards, helped by commercial boats in the area, from the sunken boat some 30 km (18 miles) off the north Cyprus coast.
Television footage of the passengers’ arrival showed several ambulances arriving at Mersin’s Tasucu harbor, from where they were taken to the Silifke district for treatment.
The coast guard said a Panama-flagged commercial ship spotted the migrant boat some 25 nautical miles from Turkey’s southern province of Antalya and alerted the coast guard on Wednesday morning.
Turkey has become one of the main launch points for thousands of migrants taking the dangerous sea route to the European Union, many fleeing conflict and poverty in the embattled Syrian territories among other Middle Eastern regions.
At least 50 Palestinians from Syria died at sea trying to cross to Europe from the Mediterranean and other launch destinations, according to AGPS statistics.
