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Migrant boat sinks off Turkey, 17 killed

Migrant boat sinks off Turkey, 17 killed

People upload coffins with the bodies of migrants that were drowned while they were trying to cross on a boat to the nearby Greek island of Kos, to the hospital's morgue at the coastal town of Bodrum on Sunday, Sept. 27. (Photo: AP)

September 27, 2015, Sunday/ 10:49:37/ TODAYSZAMAN.COM WITH REUTERS / ISTANBUL

Seventeen migrants trying to reach Greece from Turkey drowned on Sunday when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea.

The victims were Syrians who departed from the Turkish resort town of Bodrum and were bound for the Greek island of Leros, the Doğan news agency reported. Five women and five children were among the dead.

The remaining 20 migrants on the boat were rescued, with none missing or unaccounted for by Sunday afternoon.

The area where the incident happened is part of the larger Bodrum peninsula, a popular tourist destination where this summer the body of drowned toddler Aylan Kurdi washed up on the shore, sparking international outrage.

A record number of Syrians -- at least 300,000 -- and migrants from other countries have arrived in Greece recently, mostly setting off from Turkey's Aegean coast, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The coast guard has rescued more than 53,000 migrants, however 274 have died in Turkish waters, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş has said, without giving a time frame in which those deaths occurred.

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