Last ferry sinking survivor discharged as search for 14 missing continues
The final hospitalised survivor of last week’s ferry sinking off Kyrenia has been discharged as a third Turkish search-and-rescue vessel is due to arrive.
Kyrenia, Cyprus. The final person hospitalised following last week’s sinking of a passenger ferry off the coast of Kyrenia has been discharged, Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel said on Thursday. Fourteen people have been confirmed dead and another 14 remain missing.
Search operation expanded
Ustel told an extraordinary session of the Turkish Cypriot legislature that a third search-and-rescue ship had set sail from Istanbul to assist efforts to locate the missing people.
He said the vessel is equipped with deep-water search capabilities and specialised technical equipment and is expected to arrive by Sunday evening. It is due to begin operations on Monday alongside the TCG Isin and TCG Alemdar, two deep-sea search-and-rescue ships already deployed off Cyprus.
Ustel said on Wednesday night that search operations were taking time because of the depth of the sea, conditions in the area and the state of the wreckage.
“However, we are resolutely continuing our efforts by expanding our resources and deploying new technical capabilities,” he said.
Investigation and arrests
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that nine ships and 11 aircraft were taking part in efforts to recover the bodies of the 14 people still unaccounted for.
He said North Cyprus authorities had launched an investigation and that eight crew members, including the ferry’s captain, had been taken into custody. Erdogan said the judicial process was being closely monitored by official institutions.
All eight crew members, including captain Mustafa Oz, were arrested on the day of the disaster and remain in custody. They last appeared in court on Thursday last week.
A police representative told the court that Oz had bought his Honduran captain’s licence for $3,500 after contacting “some people in Greece”, after his original Turkish licence expired following a 10-year hiatus from the industry.
It was also claimed that the Turkish port of Tasucu, the ferry’s planned destination, had been closed on August 30, the day of the accident, because of storms in the region and was due to remain closed until 3pm. Oz allegedly decided to set sail at midday regardless.
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