Ten children were among at least 37 migrants who drowned in the Aegean Sea after their boat capsized as they attempted the crossing from Turkey to Greece.

Turkish coastguards rescued 75 others from the sea near the resort of Ayvacik on Saturday, according to the official Anadolou news agency. They had been trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos.

Images of dead children on a beach on Saturday recalled the photo of three-year-old Alan Kurdi lying face down on a Turkish beach last year.

The agency has identified the survivors as natives of Afghanistan, Syria and Myanmar. “We are sad. At least 20 friends are still missing,” one weeping survivor told an AFP photographer at the scene.

A private Turkish news agency, Dogan, reported that police had arrested a Turkish man suspected of being the smuggler who organised the ill-fated crossing.

Turkey, which is hosting at least 2.5 million refugees from Syria’s civil war, has become the main launchpad for migrants fleeing war, persecution and poverty.

“January has been the deadliest month so far for drownings between Turkey and Greece,” Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, told Associated Press. “Almost every day, more drown on this dangerous journey.

“It is deeply disturbing that after all those solemn pledges when Aylan Kurdi drowned, these latest drownings were barely mentioned in the media.

“We have chosen to look away.”

A Turkish government official said that by the late afternoon rescuers had recovered bodies trapped inside the wreckage of the 17m (56ft) boat, which sank shortly after departing from the shore near the Aegean resort of Ayvacik, raising the death toll to 37.

Saim Eskioglu, deputy governor for the coastal Çanakkale province that includes Ayvacik, said the boat “hit rocks soon after it left the coast.”

“There were around 10 children among the dead,” Eskioglu said. “Four of them, unfortunately, were babies about one or two years old. We are deeply saddened.”

Ankara struck a deal with the EU in November to halt the flow of refugees, in return for €3bn (£2.3bn) in financial assistance to help improve the refugees’ conditions.

Neither the deal nor the winter conditions appear to have deterred the migrants, who continue to pay people smugglers thousands for the risky crossing in overloaded boats.

Lesbos has become one of the most popular gateways into the European Union. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said this week that 45,361 migrants had arrived in Greece by sea so far this year, 31 times more than for all of January 2015.

About 90% of the arrivals were from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, it added.

Assoicated Press contributed to this report