A migrant family from Syria arrives on the island of Kos after crossing from Turkey. Photo: Getty Images
Paris:Â The French honorary consul in Turkey has resigned after she was found to be selling rubber dinghies and life jackets to migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
Francoise​ Olcay​ was suspended on Friday after a France 2 television report showed her selling the items from a sailing goods shop she owns in the southwestern Turkish resort town of Bodrum.
A screenshot of the report shot by France 2, showing the Bodrum store owned by Francoise Olcay. Photo: France 2
In the footage Ms Olcay​ says others would have taken her place if she didn't sell the items, and implicated local Turkish authorities who she said allowed the trade and the movement of migrants to take place.
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Bodrum is the town where Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi washed up dead on the beach, after fleeing Syria along with his five-year old brother, their mum and other Syrians earlier this month.
His picture shocked the world and hastened responses by governments to the crisis.
A screenshot of the France 2 video showing some of the boats available at the Bodrum store. Photo: France 2
The town is a gateway to Kos and other islands in Greece for thousands of Syrian, Libyan and North African migrants hoping to reach Europe.
More than 2000 people have died this year as 150,000 tried to make the journey in unseaworthy wooden boats and rubber dinghies.
Ms Olcay, who has held the position of honorary consul, a volunteer post, since October 2014, was secretly filmed by the reporting team and later admitted to her actions.
A migrant from Gambia praises Allah in Kos, Greece, after safely completing a journey across the Aegean Sea in a small boat from Turkey in August. Photo: Getty Images
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Two Palestinian boys play by a sand sculpture paying tribute to three year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi, whose haunting image hammered home the Syrian migrant crisis to the world. Photo: AP
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