At least 22 die after truck carrying migrants crashes in Turkey

At least 22 migrants, including children, died on Sunday when a truck they were travelling in overturned in Turkey''s western province of Izmir. 

The mangled wreckage of the open-topped truck lay toppled over in a canal, some 20 metres below a highway from which it apparently fell after crashing through a barrier, video and photos showed.

Thirteen people were injured and taken by ambulance to nearby hospitals, it said.

A state prosecutor has launched an investigation into the crash and the truck driver could face arrest after hospital treatment.

The truck driver lost control of the vehicle and it crashed at around 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) in the Gaziemir district, near the airport south of Izmir city, the private Demiroren news agency (DHA) reported.

There were no further details on the identity of the migrants.

Turkey has been a main route for migrants trying to cross into Europe, especially since 2011, when the Syrian civil war began. 

Hundreds of thousands of migrants have set out to sea from Turkey's coasts in the last few years to try to reach neighboring Greece, which is a member of the European Union. 

A Turkish-EU deal in 2016 to send those migrants back to Turkey significantly curbed the number of border crossings but many desperate migrants still attempt the journey.