Dozens drown as migrants’ boat sinks off Turkish coast

ISTANBUL (AP) — Some 58 people drowned when a fishing boat carrying migrants that smugglers had promised refuge in Europe sank after hitting rocks off the coast of western Turkey, the website of the Hurriyet newspaper quoted officials as saying Thursday.

Nine children were among the dead, according to Turkey’s Dogan News Agency. Several dozen survivors, mostly from Iraq and Syria, were able to swim through the Aegean waters to shore, only 50 meters (160 feet) away.

Turkish media reported that most of those killed were Palestinian.

Turkey’s TRT television earlier quoted Tahsin Kurtbeyoglu, a local administrator, as saying 20 bodies were recovered from the fishing boat carrying about 100 people, but officials later raised the toll.

Dozens of survivors, mostly from Iraq and Syria, were able to swim through the Aegean waters to shore, only 50 meters (160 feet) away.

Survivors had told authorities that some people were trapped below the deck of the submerged vessel, and divers launched an operation to try to find them. Television footage showed several rescue vessels near the dim outline of the submerged boat, which lay just below the surface of the water. Ambulances waited at the top of a cliff, but there were no indications that anyone else had survived.

TRT report that authorities arrested two Turkish suspects in the smuggling operation.

Activists say Syrian troops have recaptured from rebels a town on the border with Jordan used as a transit point by refugees fleeing the country’s civil war.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and local activist Mohammed Abu Houran say hundreds of Syrian soldiers backed by 20 tanks assaulted Tel Chehab on Thursday morning. Rebels fought back but were pushed out.

Abu Houran says about 2,000 refugees were in Tel Chehab when it was captured.

Syrian rebels, who claim to hold over half of Syria, have been in control of Tel Chehab for months. Abu Houran said it had faced repeated government assaults in the past.

More than 160,000 Syrian refugees are now in Jordan. Syria’s 18-month crisis has killed more than 23,000 people, activists say.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.