Six migrants drowned while another 27 were rescued by the coastguard when their boat started sinking off the western coast of Turkey, the interior minister said on Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reported.
The incident took place before dawn just south of the seaside resort of İzmir in the waters separating the Turkish coast from the Greek island of Samos, which lies just 15 kilometers (nine miles) away.
“The bodies of six lifeless illegal immigrants were fished out of the water,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X, adding that the coastguard had rescued 27 others, one of whom was detained on suspicion of smuggling.
Last month seven migrants drowned in the same stretch of water.
Shipwrecks are common on the short but perilous route between the Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands of Samos, Rhodes and Lesbos, which serve as entry points to the European Union.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2,333 migrants disappeared or died in the Mediterranean last year.
