DHAKA: At least 11 migrants, six of them children, have drowned as two boats making the hazardous crossing from Turkey capsized in the Aegean Sea off Greece on Sunday.

The Turkish Coast Guard has said, adding to the three children and one woman who died off Turkey’s Çanakkale, reports hurriyetdailynews.com.

The first tragedy occurred off the island of Samos when a boat overturned just 20 meters from the shore.

Ten bodies - including six children, four of them babies - were found in the vessel’s cabin while that of a girl washed up on the island, where dozens of refugees have perished trying to reach Europe in recent days.

The Coast Guard said two others were still missing while 15 had been plucked from the water.

A boat from European border agency Frontex also recovered two bodies near the island of Farmakonnisi, near Samos, the Coast Guard said.

Frontex also rescued three others, who said their boat was carrying 15 people when it sank in Turkish waters.

Greek authorities and the Turkish Coast Guard ‘continue to search the zone to find the migrants who disappeared in the sinking, which probably took place off the Turkish coast’, a representative of the Greek Coast Guard’s press office told the media.

Separately, four migrants, including three children, died after three dinghies bringing mostly Afghan migrants to Greece capsized off the Aegean coastal province of Çanakkale on October 31.

Three plastic boats carrying around 140 people capsized in the Aegean Sea due to bad weather and sea conditions after setting sail from Sivrice bay in the province’s Ayvacık district at around 5:00pm on October 31, heading for Greece’s Lesbos Island.

BDST: 2151 HRS, Nov 01, 2015
RR