10 Children Among the Dead as a Migrant Boat Capsizes Off Turkey

GENEVA — One photo showed a small boy, perhaps 3 years old, dressed for a mild winter — dark blue pants and coat, a sky blue sweater for extra protection. The grown-up who had dressed him for the journey — barely five miles across the Aegean Sea — had cared enough to put on matching socks, with little blue cars. The boy was lying face up on the rocks. A winter hat, sky blue with a white pom-pom, covered his lifeless face.

The little boy was among 37 people — most of them believed to be Syrians fleeing war and trying to reach European shores — who died when their boat capsized on Saturday and washed up on the rocky shoals of the Turkish coast. At least 10 children died in the accident, according to reports from The Associated Press, which came as the rival parties in Syria were in Geneva, squabbling over the terms of sitting down for peace talks.

The state-run Turkish news agency, Anadolu, reported that their 56-foot-long boat had left Ayvacik, a Turkish resort town, Saturday morning and capsized on the rocks. There were people from Afghanistan and Myanmar on the boat, too, the news agency said.

Turkish rescue workers had recovered 37 bodies by day’s end. Survivors were taken away. There were no details available on who they were and what happened to cause the accident.

All that was certain was that they were among a growing number of people trying to make the crossing in winter time, when the sea is more treacherous.

On Friday, the International Organization for Migration reported that so far in January, 218 people had drowned in the Aegean Sea as they tried to reach the Greek islands, an entry point into European Union countries. More than two dozen others had died trying to reach Italy.

“Deaths on this route are increasing at an alarming rate,” a spokesman for the agency, Joel Millman, warned on Friday in a news briefing here.

Deaths in the Syrian conflict have also increased at an alarming rate for the past five years, now more than 250,000, according to the United Nations, and still the world powers that are aiding the rivals on the battlefield have shown little interest in calling for a truce.

The latest and perhaps most concentrated efforts began this past week, with the United Nations inviting representatives from both government and opposition camps to come to Geneva and start talking.

But those talks have been bogged down over how to hold the meetings. Until Friday, the main opposition balked at coming at all and said it would send a delegation only to talk to the United Nations envoy, Staffan de Mistura, about what they demanded of the Syrian government before any direct negotiations with it.

Under American pressure, they arrived on Saturday night. Their first meeting with Mr. de Mistura was expected to take place on Sunday afternoon.

The government delegation met with the mediator on Friday, and left without saying anything about addressing the opposition’s demands. The government regards many members of the opposition bloc as terrorists.

The main knot in the talks is whether to discuss the future of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. The United States and Russia, though they have invested heavily in getting those meetings off the ground, remain at odds over Mr. Assad, a key ally of Russia in the region.

The regional powers fueling the war are at even greater odds. Iran has sent a stream of fighters to aid Mr. Assad’s army. Saudi Arabia and Turkey have had the single-minded goal of removing Mr. Assad from power.

In December, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said that he hoped that the diplomatic efforts to end the Syrian conflict would not be “dependent on the fate of one man.”