Refugee crisis: at least 27 people die off Turkish coast

[pampango]

Source: The Guardian

At least 27 refugees, including 11 children, drowned after a boat trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos capsized two miles off the Turkish coast on Monday, the Turkish coastguard has said. Three of the boat’s passengers were rescued by the coastguard, while a fourth was rescued by a fisherman. A search operation was still underway for nine others.

The boat sank in the Aegean Sea near the Edremit area of the north-western province of Balikesir, about two miles off the Turkish coast.

While many expected numbers to drop over the winter, refugees have continued to make their way across the sea despite low temperatures and heavy storms. Last month marked the deadliest January on record, with more than 250 deaths.

Turkey, a country that hosts about 2.5 million Syrian refugees, the largest such population in the world, says that it does not have the capacity to host any more. According to the Turkish government, almost 30,000 Syrians are currently waiting at the Turkish-Syrian border, fleeing an attack by government forces on Aleppo.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/08/refugee-crisis-dead-turkey-aegean-coast-greece

[Botany]

1. more bloodshed thanx to w & Cheney's war in Iraq

No war in Iraq = no ISIS

[mwrguy]

2. EU has enough naval capability to help these poor people out

Help them come over so that they don't have to rely on these dangerous old boats.

[pampango]

4. They have helped many sinking boats in the past.

While I understand your humanitarian concern for those who die trying to cross, I am not sure at all that there would be support in the EU for providing transport for them from Turkey to Greece. There is growing resistance to those who have made it to Greece on their own.

[uhnope]

3. Syrian Pres. Assad's comment on the latest mass death of his people:

*crickets*

[pampango]

5. Related: Syrians Desperate to Escape What U.N. Calls ‘Extermination’ by Government

Tens of thousands of Syrians who were running for their lives piled up near the border crossing with Turkey here on Monday. They were fleeing a crushing wave of Russian airstrikes and government ground forces advancing toward the frontier in a developing rout of insurgent forces north of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

The intense and, critics say, indiscriminate Russian air attacks have shattered the latest round of peace talks, forced the regional and global players to reassess their strategies and calculations and left Syrian insurgents shocked that the United States and other countries that have supported them appear unable or unwilling to reverse the battlefield momentum.

And the potentially decisive turn in Syria’s nearly five-year civil war comes against the backdrop of a deepening humanitarian crisis that was reinforced on Monday by a United Nations report that accused Damascus of “inhuman actions” against Syrian civilians on a scale that “amounts to extermination.”

For their part, the Turks were refusing to open their border, in part, analysts said, to pressure the United States to finally grant their longstanding wish of establishing a buffer zone inside Syria where civilians would be safe from Syrian government and Russian airstrikes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/world/middleeast/syria-united-nations-report.html