The incident took place last night around 2.22 a.m. local time (Saturday GMT2322), near Kekova Geyikova Island, two-and-a-half miles southwest of Demre, in the coastal province of Antalya, the coast guard command said in a statement.
After a fishermen alerted the coast guard to the emergency, four boats, one plane, and a helicopter were dispatched to the scene, the statement said.
Five migrants were rescued by the coast guard and one other was rescued by a fishing boat, but the coast guard found nine who had drowned.
Doğan News Agency reported that all victims were Syrian nationals, including 13-year-old Darin Rashid, 10-year-old Dildar Rashid, eight-year-old Shiar and Dijwar Rashid, three-year-old Amina Rashid, 14-year-old Mohammed Bilal and 10-year-old Zahra Bilal.
The Rashid siblings were children of Idris and Zainab who were among survivors. Barely holding their tears back, the couple who lost five children was at a loss for words. Idris crouched down a wall with his palms firmly on his eyes while Zainab wore a sad look and clutched the handkerchief as she repeatedly wiped her welling eyes. "I have nothing now. I feel like I am dead. I lost everything. May Allah give us power [to survive]," Idris said.
The family had traveled to Antalya from Hatay, a Turkish city bordering with Syria. "[Smugglers] put us on a boat and told us to leave. I thought there would be a captain but there was nobody. No one aboard knew how to sail. It would take ten minutes [to the Greek side] but we were stuck in the same place for two hours. In the end, it sank," he said. Rashid said they would die too if it wasn't for Turkish soldiers.
