Turkey finds nine bodies after December migrant wreck

At least nine bodies have washed ashore on Turkey’s southern coast in the past week, local media reported Monday, with officials suspecting that most belonged to migrants who went missing in December.

Three bodies were found Monday on the Mediterranean Sea shores of Antalya nearby Mugla, bringing the total number to nine, Turkish media reported.

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Local officials are weighing the possibility that most drifted ashore after a boat carrying 90 migrants sank in the Mediterranean last month, the governor’s office said in a social media statement Sunday.

Shoes and clothes from five of the victims appear to have been manufactured in Syria, local officials said.

The Lebanese embassy in Ankara on December 11 reported the disappearance of a boat with 90 migrants on board that had sailed from waters between Lebanon and Syria toward the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

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According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), more than 3,000 migrants went missing in the Mediterranean in 2023, the highest death toll since 2017.

© Agence France-Presse