(CNN) — At least 24 migrants — 10 of them children — drowned in the Mediterranean Sea between Turkey and Greece after their boat capsized, a Greek coast guard representative told CNN.
Forty-five people were on the boat when it capsized Wednesday evening. By midday Thursday, 10 migrants had been rescued and 11 more remained missing.
Greek authorities learned about the sinking after a man made it ashore in Kokkari, on the north coast of Greece’s Samos island, and claimed he’d escaped from the sinking boat.
Members of the Hellenic Coast Guard and Frontex, the European Union’s border patrol agency, responded at the scene while planes from the Hellenic Air Force surveyed the area from above, according to the coast guard representative.
Those confirmed dead include the 10 children, 11 men and one woman, the representative added.
The International Organization for Migration reported that 3,811 people were reported dead or missing last year in the Mediterranean Sea. Most all were migrants trying to escape war zones, poverty or other dire straits in their homelands.
This month in the Mediterranean, there have been 224 such deaths — a figure that includes some but not necessarily all of the fatalities from Wednesday’s incident, according to the same advocacy group.
