Nine drowned refugees wash up on Turkish beach

A Turkish news agency says the bodies of nine drowned migrants, including children, have washed up on a beach on Turkey’s Aegean coast after their boat capsized in rough seas.

The Dogan news agency says the bodies were discovered early on Tuesday in the resort town of Ayvalik, from where migrants set off on boats to reach the Greek island of Lesvos.

Turkish coasts guards were dispatched to search for possible survivors. Eight migrants were rescued.

Dogan video footage showed a body, still wearing a life jacket, being pulled from the sea onto the sandy beach.

There was no immediate information on the migrants’ nationalities.

Some 850,000 migrants and refugees crossed into Greece last year, paying smuggling gangs to ferry them over from Turkey in frail boats.