Istanbul/Valletta: At least 14 refugees, including seven children, drowned on Wednesday when their flimsy boat sank off Turkey’s Aegean coast while trying to reach Greece, the latest fatalities in Europe’s refugee crisis.

The Turkish coastguard recovered the bodies from the wooden boat which was heading from the western province of Canakkale to the Greek island of Lesbos, the Dogan news agency said.

“This morning another 14 refugees died ... Must there be another Aylan for the world to wake up. Humanity is watching from the sidelines,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

He was referring to three-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi, whose body was pictured washed up on a Turkish beach in September in harrowing images that shocked the world, pressuring European leaders to step up their response to the crisis.

Dogan reported that 27 people were rescued in the Aegean on Wednesday, among them a pregnant woman, and the survivors were said to be in good condition.

Coastguard workers backed by helicopters were continuing a search for those unaccounted for, Dogan said, without specifying how many might be missing.

The latest tragedy came as European leaders were due to meet African counterparts in Malta to discuss the migration crisis.

European leaders tried Wednesday to focus on joint action with Africa to tackle the refugee crisis, as Slovenia became the latest EU member to act on its own by barricading its border.

EU leaders plan to offer their African counterparts up to 3.6 billion euros ($3.8 billion) in aid at a summit in Malta on Wednesday in exchange for help tackling the migration crisis rocking Europe.

The rare gathering of around 50 leaders from the two continents is the newest prong in the European Union’s quest for a joint strategy to deal with the biggest flow of refugees and refugees since World War II.

But Slovenia’s move underlined again the divisions within the bloc over how to respond to the crisis.

The Balkan state’s army began on Wednesday rolling out razor wire along the border with Croatia.

After Hungary sealed its borders last month, Slovenia found itself on the main Balkans route for the thousands of refugees who are landing in Greece every day after braving the short but dangerous sea crossing from Turkey.

Bureaucrats in Brussels, who pushed for the summit in Malta, oppose fences because they argue they simply redirect the flow of refugees and undermine efforts for a joint solution.

The EU is offering up to 3.6 billion euros to persuade African leaders to take back more economic refugees, a step many African countries are reluctant to take for fear of losing the billions of dollars in remittances sent home by people working abroad.

European nations aim to boost cooperation with African countries to protect refugees, send home irregular refugees and stop those who smuggle them, while offering Africans expanded legal channels of migration.

“This summit is about action,” European Council President Donald Tusk told summit hosts Malta late Tuesday.

African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who will attend the summit, “will speak on the way Africa and Europe can partner and work collaboratively to reap the benefits of labour migration as well as on ways to overcome the challenges around irregular migration in the immediate, medium and long terms,” according to an EU statement.

As a carrot, the European Commission, the 28-nation EU’s executive arm, is setting up a 1.8-billion-euro “trust fund” for Africa and has urged member states to match that sum — although European sources said it was not sure that they would.

The money would go towards tackling the root causes of migration like poverty and conflict.

“This new fund will help us working together to offer the people of Africa a better future at a time when young Africans often have a choice between unemployment or radicalisation,” Tusk added.

Progress on the main thrust of the EU’s current refugee strategy — fostering cooperation with Turkey — will be discussed when EU leaders meet without the Africans on Thursday in Valetta.

Turkey has surpassed North Africa as the main launching point for refugees coming to Europe, and currently hosts two million Syrian refugees.