3 November 2014
At least 24 illegal migrants have drowned when a boat taking them towards the European Union sank in the Black Sea just off Istanbul, Turkish media reported.
Six people were rescued and seventeen more were missing from the stricken boat, which had set off earlier from Istanbul and had travelled through the Bosphorus Strait on its way to Romania, the reports added on Monday.
Eleven children, five women and one man were still unaccounted for, as authorities continued their search near the northern entrance of the Bosphorus.
Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Istanbul, said the chances of finding survivors was slim in the rough and cold water.
Those on board were Afghans who had paid several thousand euros each in search of a better life in the EU and had set off earlier from Bakirkoy, an Istanbul suburb on the Sea of Marmara side of the Bosphorus.
