Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said that a total of nine ships and 11 aircraft are participating in efforts to recover the bodies of the 14 people who remain unaccounted for after a passenger ferry sank off the coast of Kyrenia last week.
“In the tragic accident caused by the capsizing of a passenger boat travelling from Kyrenia to Tasucu, 239 of our brothers and sisters were rescued, but unfortunately, 14 of them passed away. Fourteen of our brothers and sisters are still missing,” he explained after the day’s cabinet meeting.
He added that “in collaboration with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, we are currently supporting the search efforts with nine ships and 11 aircraft”.
“Following the accident, an investigation was launched by the North Cyprus authorities, and eight crew members, including the ship’s captain, were taken into custody. The judicial process is being closely monitored by our official institutions,” he said.
Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel remains in Turkey, having travelled to the country to “discuss the reports prepared by these specialised organisations”, which he said on Sunday are “experienced in deep-sea wreck searching and ship salvage operations”.
“We will jointly evaluate the steps which can be taken to reach our missing bed ones, to continue the work inside the ship, or to salvage the wreck,” he said.
After those meetings, he said, he will also meet with “senior officials from the boat’s insurance company” so as to “assess the situation and discuss how the process will proceed from now on”.
He said that he will then travel to Ankara to hold “high-level meetings”, in which he and Turkish officials “will evaluate the current situation, the reports received, and the steps which can be taken from now on”, before he will return to Cyprus and “share the roadmap for the coming period with the families of the missing and with the public”.
Ustel to meet ‘high-level’ officials in Turkey on Tuesday
Turkish Cypriot acting ‘transport minister’ Ozdemir Berova on Monday confirmed that those meetings with “high-level” officials will take place on Tuesday, and said that Ustel’s meetings in Turkey will “be an important step towards clarifying the issue of removing the boat” from the bottom of the sea.
On Monday afternoon, Ustel’s office announced that the TCG Isin, one of the two deep-sea research vessels which had been sent to the area by Turkey’s navy last week to aid in search-and-rescue efforts, had temporarily left the waters off Cyprus to be refuelled.
“It will resume its operations after refuelling is complete,” it said, before adding that both the TCG Isin and the TCG Alemdar, the other deep-sea research vessel which was deployed to the waters off Cyprus, “possess the necessary technical capabilities to conduct search-and-rescue operations in deep waters”.
“To ensure the continuity of the operation, when our vessels require refuelling, maintenance, or have other technical needs, crew rotations will be carried out, and search-and-rescue activities will continue uninterrupted,” it said.
The ferry capsized shortly after leaving the new port of Kyrenia en route to the Turkish port of Tasucu on August 30, with 259 passengers and eight crew members on board. In addition to the 14 people who are confirmed to have died and the 14 who remain missing, one person remains in hospital as a result of the accident.
All eight members of the crew were arrested on the day of the disaster, and all eight remain in custody, having appeared in court most recently on Thursday last week.
There, a police representative said that Oz had bought his Honduran captain’s licence for $3,500 after having made contact with “some people in Greece”, with his original Turkish licence having expired following a 10-year hiatus from the industry.
Additionally, it was claimed that the Turkish port of Tasucu, the ferry’s planned destination, had been closed on Sunday following storms in the region, and was due to remain closed until 3pm that day, but that Oz decided to set sail “regardless” at midday.
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