12 killed As Bus Carrying Migrants Overturns in East Turkey

12 people were killed and 20 others injured on Sunday when a minibus carrying migrants overturned and caught fire in eastern Turkey.

The Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported that the vehicle tumbled into a ditch while traveling overnight near Yumakli in Van province, which borders Iran.

Television broadcasts showed groaning survivors being treated by the roadside as emergency workers sifted through the burnt-out wreckage.

Accordingly, migrants were mostly from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. They regularly crossed the Iranian border into Turkey on foot before being ferried west to cities such as Istanbul and Ankara.

The planned U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has given added impetus to young men trying the mountainous route, according to Metin Corabatir, president of the Ankara-based Center for Asylum and Migration Studies.

In June 2020, more than 60 migrants drowned in Lake Van when their boat sank.