According to the Turkish coast guard, it rescued a total of 81 migrants from distress at sea who had tried to cross the Aegean Sea to the EU state of Greece in rubber boats. A group of 49 people were picked up off the coast of Dikili district, the Coast Guard said on Tuesday. 32 other migrants were rescued further north off the coast of Ayvacik.
The coast guard accused Greece of illegally pushing the second boat carrying migrants back into Turkish territorial waters. The statement could not be independently verified. Ankara repeatedly accuses Greece of so-called pushbacks, i.e. the illegal pushing back of migrants. Athens rejects this. According to the Turkish coast guard, both rescue operations took place on Monday. The nationality of the migrants was not mentioned.
Turkey has taken in around 3.7 million refugees from the civil war in Syria and hundreds of thousands of migrants from other countries.
