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ISTANBUL/ANKARA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Seventeen migrants were drowned on Sunday when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea near southwestern Turkey, according to Dogan news agency.
All victims were Syrians who left the Turkish resort town of Bodrum for the Greek island of Kos, the report said. The route is considered one of the shortest by sea from Asia to EU territory.
Local officials said an 8-meter-long boat carrying some 37 people departed from Gumusluk and sank off the Cavusadasi coast in early morning. Some 20 have been rescued, while 17 bodies have been found.
In the first five months of 2015, over 42,000 people, mostly refugees, reached Greece by sea, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. The agency said more than 300,000 people have risked their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea so far this year, with around 2,500 refugees and migrants having died or gone missing trying to reach Europe.
