The Turkish coast guard on Friday rescued 14 illegal migrants and a suspected human trafficker off Turkey’s Aegean coast, but a search for a missing infant is still under way, the coast guard said in a statement, according to the Xinhua news agency.
The inflatable boat carrying 15 illegal migrants sank near Bodrum in the southwestern province of Muğla, according to the statement posted on the coast guard website.
The rescue team was continuing to search for the missing baby, the statement noted, without providing the nationalities of the illegal migrants and their intended destination.
A day earlier, the coast guard rescued 39 illegal migrants whose inflatable boat overturned near Enez in the northwestern province of Edirne.
The Aegean Sea was once the main route for migrants trying to enter Europe via Turkey. A deal signed between Turkey and the European Union in March 2016 has curbed the flow of illegal migration.
Since this year, a total of 33,632 migrants have attempted to reach Greece through Turkey, up from 18,484 over the same period of 2018, according to the latest figures released by the Turkish coast guard.