27th body recovered after Kyrenia ferry sinking; one person still missing

Kyrenia, Cyprus. A 27th body was recovered from the sea off Kyrenia on Thursday, leaving one person unaccounted for following the sinking of a ferry on August 30, Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel said.

Identification and search efforts continue

Ustel said the necessary examinations had begun to identify the body and that search efforts were continuing “with determination” to locate and recover the final body.

Three bodies were recovered on Wednesday. One was identified late that evening as Orhan Bekret.

Funerals were also held in Turkey for Mahmut Demir and Ozgur Gonul, whose bodies were recovered on Tuesday. Demir was buried in Reyhanli, in Hatay province, between the Turkish Mediterranean coastal city of Iskenderun and Syria’s second city, Aleppo. Gonul was buried in Tarsus, in Turkey’s Mersin province.

Ferry sank after departing Kyrenia

The ferry sank shortly after midday on August 30, having set sail from Kyrenia’s new port for the Turkish port of Tasucu with 259 passengers and eight crew members aboard.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ustel said: “Since the day of the disaster, our state has mobilised all its resources to locate all the missing individuals and has continued search operations without interruption.”

He added that efforts would continue with the same determination until all missing people were found.

Nine remain in custody

Nine people were arrested following the disaster: the captain, now identified as Mustafa Oz, seven crew members and a representative of the ferry’s operating company, Filo Denizcilik. All nine remain in custody and most recently appeared in court last Friday.

At a previous hearing, the court heard that a crack had appeared on the side of the ferry almost two months before it sank. Photographs recovered from the first mate’s mobile phone indicated that repairs were carried out on June 17.

Questions over certificate, licence and repairs

Questions remain over the vessel’s certificate and the captain’s licence.

The court heard that Oz and the crew carried out the repairs at a port in Cyprus without informing the Turkish Cypriot authorities, although Oz and Filo Denizcilik were required to notify them in such circumstances.