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At least 51 migrants drown off Turkish coast |
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Written by Agencies
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Tuesday, 11 December 2007 |
At least 51 illegal migrants from Africa and the Middle East drowned and more were missing when a boat carrying some 80 people capsized off the Turkish Aegean coast on Saturday.
Six people, including two Palestinians, were rescued and taken to hospital, Orhan Sefik Guldibi, a local governor in the coastal Izmir province, told state-run Anatolian news agency.
Helicopters and rescue boats were searching the waters for the missing migrants.
Dozens of bodies had already washed up on the Turkish coast.
The Turkish coast guard, which put the death toll at 32 earlier on Monday, said there had been some 85 people on the 15- to 20-metre (49- to 66-foot) boat. It quoted survivors as saying the boat had sunk near what they thought was a Greek island.
Guldibi said the migrants were Palestinian, Somali and Iraqi.
The incident is one of the worst involving illegal migrants in Europe this year. Turkey is a major transit point for illegal immigration, as migrants head for European Union member countries on its border.
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