Another lifeless child is carried off a beach as 39 drown off Turkish coast Saturday January 30,2016

A small 56ft boat, which carried the 120 migrants, sinks into the sea off Turkey's western coast

 

Turkish police officers have the awful task of looking for bodies on a beach in Canakkale's Bademli district

In horrific scenes the world hoped it would never see again, a Turkish police officer lifts a tiny, lifeless child from a beach – and gently places it into an open body bag.

 

The moment is harrowingly reminiscent of the fate of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler whose death shocked the world after he was washed up on a Turkish beach in September 2015

Four months later, these pictures from the drowning Saturday January 30,2016 of at least 39 migrants attempting to cross the sea from Turkey into Europe convey a tragedy now all too chillingly familiar

The lifeless body of the migrant boy lies on the beach, with his face covered by a blue woolly hat

Only hours earlier, the child, dressed in an anorak to protect it from the cold, had been among 120 refugees hoping to sail from mainland Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos – a popular route for migrants seeking entry to the European Union.

Even in the dark it should have been a relatively straightforward journey of just five nautical miles aboard a 56ft yacht – and it seems many of the passengers were issued with lifejackets.

Yet just minutes after casting off from the village of Behram in the province of Canakkale, the vessel struck rocks and began taking on water. 

Many of those crouching above deck jumped into the sea and swam to safety. But those below deck were trapped. 

As the sun rose over the Turkish coastline yesterday, their bodies began drifting back towards the shoreline, near the resort of Ayvacik.

Horrified locals used the lifejackets to cover bodies of the dead including at least one other child, while a baby’s dummy and a tiny blue woollen hat were also seen on the beach. The vessel could be seen just 50 yards out to sea.

As mayor Mehmut Sahin said: ‘Local people woke up to the sound of screaming migrants and we have been carrying out rescue work since dawn. I am afraid the numbers [of dead] will rise as the divers continue the search.’

Note

Turkey is currently hosting 2.5 million Syrian refugees. In November, the country received £2.5 billion of EU investment to help stem the flow of migrants

More than one million migrants arrived in the EU last year and some 3,600 died or went missing

Around 500,000 refugees from the five-year-old war in Syria travelled through Turkey and then risked their lives at sea to reach the Greek islands in 2015.