A 20-day-old baby died at the weekend and six more remained in intensive care on Monday after being fed ethanol while being treated at north Nicosia’s emergency hospital.

The baby, named as Mihrimah Toymuradov, had been born prematurely and was being incubated at the hospital. An autopsy carried out on Monday revealed that her death was caused by being fed ethanol, with the results set to be sent to Istanbul.

Her funeral took place in Kioneli on Monday, with the north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel in attendance.

He promised his ‘government’ will “give the necessary punishment” to those responsible for the incident.

As news of the issue began to break, parents and other relatives of the babies began to gather outside the hospital demanding to be informed as to what was going on and to see their babies.

However, they were kept outside the hospital, and the north’s ‘health ministry’ initially refused to make a statement on the matter.

‘Minister’ Hakan Dincyurek eventually broke his silence on Sunday evening, visiting the hospital and claiming he had not made a statement up to that point as he had been instructed not to do so by the police.

“The reason behind us providing information late is the judicial investigation. The police told us to not make a statement,” he said.

He had been informed of the situation on Saturday afternoon and confirmed that he had not informed any of the impacted families throughout the process.

This comment, as well as a claim that he had then “started calling the families” created a negative reaction among those waiting outside the hospital, who loudly disagreed with this claim.

It later transpired that Toymuradov had in fact died shortly after midday on Saturday and that her parents had been kept in the dark for a full day thereafter.

Her father Baha spoke to newspaper Kibris on Monday, and said, “we came to see our baby on Friday, and she was very healthy. They called be from the hospital on Saturday at 5.51pm. They said, ‘the baby is sick, come immediately’. We live in Kioneli, so we came as fast as we could. We arrived at 6.11pm and she was already dead.”

“They said the baby had died hours before. Why did they keep us waiting? We asked for an autopsy. They told us it would be done on Monday. We went home, then when the news suddenly came out that alcohol had been added to her food, we ran back here,” he said.

Dincyurek said he would not take any questions after giving his statement, and at this point one of the aunts of the six babies who remain in intensive care asked, “are you considering resigning?”

At this point, ‘health ministry’ undersecretary Mehmet Ali Hudaverdi told her to “not provoke” him. Hudaverdi is the same civil servant who was arrested after being involved in a mass brawl involving golf clubs in Nicosia’s old town in March.

In total, five health workers were arrested in connection with the incident, and all five appeared in court in northern Nicosia on Monday, accused of causing death by negligence.

The police representative in court said the ethanol had been mixed into the babies’ food as the health workers had “not taken any precautions”, and that the ethanol had been “stored in a five-litre water bottle which was removed from the room where baby food was prepared”.

They added that they expect to take more statements on the matter and to examine CCTV footage from the hospital, and as such requested that the five be remanded in custody for three days.

The judged acquiesced and the five will likely appear in court again on Thursday.

The remaining six babies’ situation is, according to the ‘health ministry’, “stable” and “progressing well”.

Meanwhile, the European Union Infopoint’s Deniz Birinci said on Sunday night she had been informed by the Makarios children’s hospital’s chief physician Avraam Elias that his hospital is “ready to take action if needed” and is prepared to accept babies being transferred from the north.