• Authorities have not released the nationalities of victims.
• 16 migrants and one smuggler drown off Bodrum; 2 rescued.
• Nearly 1,400 migrants have so far died in Mediterranean this year.

Sixteen migrants and a people trafficker died when their inflatable dinghy capsized early Friday in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish resort of Bodrum, the coastguard said.

It was the latest in a series of migrant deaths on the short but perilous route between the Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands of Samos, Rhodes and Lesbos that serve as entry points to the European Union.

“The dead bodies of 16 illegal migrants and that of a trafficker have been recovered,” the coastguard stated, adding two migrants had been rescued.

The local governor’s office had earlier given a death toll of 14 migrants, stating on X that a migrant had managed to alert the coastguard to the emergency.

One of the two survivors, an Afghan, told rescuers that the vessel had sunk barely 10 minutes after starting to take on water.

He had been forced to swim for six hours to Celebi Island, he added.

Authorities did not give the nationalities of the other migrants. Bodrum lies less than five kilometres (3 miles) from the Greek island of Kos.

“Search and rescue efforts for other irregular migrants considered missing continue with four coast guard boats, one coast guard special diving team and one helicopter,” the governor’s office added.

The Aegean Sea is a frequent transit route for thousands of migrants attempting to cross from North Africa and the Middle East into Europe, particularly from Turkey, which hosts millions of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The number of irregular migrants caught in Turkey peaked in 2019 with nearly 455,000 people, mainly from Afghanistan and Syria, according to the Presidency of Migration Management.

According to the Missing Migrants Project run by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), nearly 1,400 migrants have died trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea this year.

Turkey, which signed an agreement with Brussels in 2016 to stem illegal immigration into the European Union, hosts more than 2.5 million refugees on its soil, the vast majority Syrians, say officials.

Journalists who covered the Gaza war shared harrowing experiences of losses and survival, expressing profound disappointment with the global community’s silent response to the killing of media professionals by Israeli forces.

During the International Press Institute (IPI) World Congress and Media Innovation Festival 2025, a panel of journalists discussed the trouble, distress, and heart-wrenching moments they faced during the Gaza war, saying it was a “deep sense of abandonment” where they witnessed the violent assault on the press.

Al Jazeera journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh, who lost his five family members, including his wife, in Israeli strikes and found his surviving daughter under the rubble, asked: “What did my family do?”

Al-Dahdouh said it was a “unique and agonising reality of reporting” that you had to choose between being a “journalist or a human.

He asserted that the international media failed to respond appropriately to the violence. “We were left alone,” he stated, emphasising that much more was required.

The statistics shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) showed that at least 238 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since October 7, 2023.

Rawan Damen, another senior journalist affiliated with Al Araby TV, praised Al-Dahdouh’s balanced reporting, distinguishing between the failure of mainstream international media to address the “genocide” and the efforts of independent outlets and some organisations that did speak out.

Laurent Richard, a French journalist, warned of the grave consequences of inaction, highlighting the “normalisation” of the murder of journalists and a pervasive lack of accountability.

“Before the war, we described Gaza as a large prison; now it is a large cemetery,” said Basel Khalaf, a journalist, while describing the situation of Gaza, urging the global media to move beyond statistics and tell the human stories of Gazan reporters.

Khalaf also outlined the urgent needs of his colleagues in Gaza, including essential equipment, medical treatment for the injured, and freedom for those imprisoned by Israel, imploring the international press to keep the story alive.

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has appointed Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan bin Abdullah Al-Fawzan as grand mufti, state media said.

Al-Fawzan was named the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia by royal decree, the official SPA news agency reported. The newly appointed grand mufti replaced Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh, who passed away on September 23.

Al-Fawzan has been a member of Ifta and the Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research since 1992, as well as the Council of Senior Scholars, the Saudi Gazette reported.

In addition, he was a member of the Supervisory Committee for Preachers during the Hajj, the Islamic Fiqh Council, and the Muslim World League.

Al-Fawzan was born in Al-Qassim in 1935 and attended school in Buraidah. He graduated from the College of Shariah in Riyadh with a master’s and a doctorate in fiqh. He later became the Higher Institute of Judiciary’s director.

The newly appointed grand mufti is also a multi-book author and has conducted several radio shows, including the well-known Nur Ala Al-Darb programme

Al-Fawzan succeeds Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, who died in September after more than 20 years in the role.

He was appointed on the recommendation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler who has ushered in sweeping reforms in a bid to diversify the economy of the world’s biggest oil exporter.

— With additional input from AFP