Turkey: 13 drown, including 6 children, after ship hits migrant dinghy

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“It was dark, we saw the ship bearing down on us. We tried to signal with flashlights and cellphones but they did not see us,” a survivor called Haseen told Greece’s state news agency, ANA.

Thrown into the water, the passengers were left fighting to keep their heads above water as a succession of big waves from the ship’s wake crashed over them. “We lost the children. We could not see them in the dark,” Haseen said.

A mother and baby, who had spent at least two hours in the water, were among the survivors, according to ANA. The Greek coastguard said it had rescued 22 people from a boat that sank off Lesbos, apparently referring to the same incident, claiming there were 48 people on board.

Greece’s marine ministry said a search was underway for those missing. The Greek coastguard later recovered the bodies of a woman and a young girl. It was not clear whether they had drowned in the same accident.

On Saturday, a five-year-old Syrian girl drowned and several other refugees were reported missing after their boat also sank trying to reach Lesbos.