More than 90 children have drowned since the lifeless body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi was washed up on a Turkish beach in September, aid agencies say, and the situation could be about to get much worse, with the next few weeks threatening to promise a "constant stream of dying children."

The shocking image of Kurdi lying on a beach prompted international outrage when itfirst emerged. Yet since his death, dozens more children have met a similar fate. For those who do survive the perilous crossings,some are found driftingfor hours in the sea, while others arrive on the Greek islands suffering from hypothermia and in need of immediate hospital care.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 69 children died making the crossing to Greece between September 2 and October 26, while another 11 are reported to have drowned when a boat capsized on Wednesday evening, followed by 11 more on Thursday evening. Despitedeteriorating weather conditions, the IOM estimatesthat more than 9,000refugees and migrants a day crossed into Greece last week—the highest figures since the beginning of the year. The island of Chios, which was only receiving around 300 arrivals a day during the peak summer period, last week saw numbers rise to some 2,000 every day.

During Wednesday's disaster, a wooden boat that passengers said had been carrying at least 300 people sank in strong winds off the north coast of the Greek island of Lesbos, according to the UNHCR. Out of 242 people who were saved, at least 15 children between the ages of three months and ten years were suffering from serious hypothermia and were admitted to hospitals on the island. Three of them—two two-year-old girls and a three-month-old baby—were immediately taken to a children's hospital in Athens, where the two-year-olds remain in intensive care.

Aid agencies warn that the number of incidents such as these show no sign of slowing down. The UNHCR says 22 people were confirmed dead and between 22-47 more are missing on Friday after two separate incidents near Rhodes and Kalimnos on Thursday evening. The Kalimnos incident left 19 confirmed dead, including eight adults, 11 children including three babies. The death toll is set to rise as more bodies are recovered.

"We fear it's getting worse," says Ron Redmond, regional spokesperson for the UNHCR. "What we're seeing is a lot of people taking to the water thinking that they can get across because the smugglers told them they could. In many cases these people have no experience of the sea, and they'll swallow whatever line the smugglers give them."

Recently, traffickers have started using bigger wooden boats instead of the smaller rubber dinghies to transport people due to the increasingly rough weather, says Redmond. These boats can carry hundreds of people and smugglers charge between 1,800 and 2,500 euros per passenger, more than the fare for the dinghies, as they claim the bigger boats are safer due to their size. In reality, says Redmond, the boats are little more than "death traps" due to the hundreds of people packed into each one.

Unscrupulous smugglers have also begun charging discounts of up to 50 percent to those who agree to make the journey in poor weather. The price is less for children, and sometimes they can travel for free. It is an effective tactic, says Redmond, despite the "extremely grave risk" the asylum seekers take. And while there is a thriving industry selling life jackets on the Turkish coast, often the jackets are not small enough for children, and in some cases, the children, particularly toddlers, just slip out of them in the water.

Kate O'Sullivan, part of Save the Children's emergency response team on Lesbos, says just as many if not more children have drowned in the past couple of months than during the summer. She says that this is due to the fact that families are increasingly desperate to get to Europe as borders across Europe close, and as winter begins to bite. "There is a lot of fear and a huge drive to get out now, while they still can," she explains. "People feel like it's now or never."

If the children make it to dry land, the conditions in the camps are particularly dangerous for them, with some becoming separated from their families in the chaotic registration process, according to Save the Children. Often they are too cold to sleep at night without proper shelter or warm clothes, and temperatures are expected to drop as low as -4 degrees as winter conditions set in. A three day storm that hit the refugee camps on Lesbos last weekend was "beyond horrific," says O'Sullivan, with many children on the verge of hypothermia, their hands and feet "literally blue." The island hospitals, O'Sullivan says, are completely overwhelmed with sick children.

And worse could be yet to come, depending on the weather. "Over the next few weeks if the weather gets worse we will see more and more drownings," she says. "We're going to see a constant stream of children dying."

Link: 

http://europe.newsweek.com/more-refugee-children-will-die-trying-reach-europe-this-year-aid-agencies-warn-335737