2-year-old is first migrant death in 2016

A drowned two-year-old boy has become the first known migrant casualty of 2016 after the crowded dinghy he was travelling in slammed into rocks off Greece’s Agathonisi island, the Coast Guard said.

The other 39 passengers, including a woman who had fallen overboard, were rescued after local fishermen raised the alarm.

Ten of the survivors were taken to hospital to be treated for hypothermia on Saturday.

The rubber vessel had set off from Turkey in the early morning in windy weather.

The charity Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), which helps save migrants and refugees at sea, deployed its fast-rescue Responder boat to help bring the stranded passengers to safety in a joint operation with the Hellenic Coast Guard.

The toddler’s body was pulled out of the water by fishermen, according to the Coast Guard.

The migrants, including the child’s mother, were taken to the port of Pythagorio on Samos, the nearest island, which is 50 kilometres away.

There was no immediate information about their nationalities.

Meanwhile, The Turkish Coast Guard rescued 57 migrants seeking to reach Greece by sea after they were stranded on a rocky islet in the Aegean Sea, official media said on Sunday.

The migrants were trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos but their boat hit trouble after leaving the resort of Dikili in Izmir province on Turkey’s Aegean coast, the Anatolia news agency reported.

They were stranded on a rocky islet off Dikili, with pictures showing the migrants, who included women and several children, looking for help from the tiny islet.

Twelve of the most vulnerable, including three children, were winched to safety by Coast Guard helicopters while the other 45 were picked up by fishing boats as the larger Coast Guard vessels could not approach the rocky islet.

They were then taken to Dikili port, it added.

Turkey, which is home to some 2.2 million refugees from the Syrian civil war, has become a hub for migrants seeking to move to Europe, many of whom pay people smugglers thousands of dollars for the crossing.