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A passenger ferry capsized shortly after departing from the port of Kyrenia in northern Cyprus, leaving at least one person dead and prompting a major rescue operation. Authorities confirmed 267 people were aboard, including 259 passengers and eight crew members, as coastguard and private vessels rushed to bring survivors to shore.
A passenger ferry capsized on Sunday near the northern coast of Cyprus, resulting in at least one confirmed death and prompting a large-scale rescue operation involving coastguard vessels and private boats.
According to Turkish Cypriot transport minister Erhan Arikli, who spoke to Turkey's state-run news agency Anadolu, a total of 267 people were on board the privately owned ferry at the time of the incident. Of those aboard, 259 were passengers and eight were crew members. The vessel departed from the port of Kyrenia at approximately 12.30pm local time and immediately began taking on water for reasons that remained unknown in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
The Kibris newspaper reported that the ferry, which some sources described as a catamaran, started to founder roughly six kilometres off the shore, where rescue teams raced against time to locate and evacuate survivors. Dramatic video footage broadcast by Turkish media showed passengers wearing red life jackets clustered on top of the overturned hull of the vessel as it lay partially submerged in the surrounding waters.
Some individuals could be seen sitting calmly while others stood, awaiting assistance from the flotilla of small boats and coastguard cutters that converged on the scene. Murat Senkul, the mayor of Kyrenia, told the broadcaster CNN Turk that 159 passengers had been successfully reached by rescuers and brought to safety. Ambulances were dispatched to the port of Kyrenia, where the rescued passengers were brought ashore to receive medical attention and assessment.
The scale of the response reflected the seriousness of the incident, given that nearly 270 people had been aboard a vessel that had capsized within sight of the coast. The incident occurred in a region that has long been a focal point of tension and tourism in the eastern Mediterranean, with northern Cyprus administered by the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a state recognised only by Turkey.
The ferry route between ports in the region has historically been popular with both locals and tourists travelling between Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot-administered north of the island. Authorities have not yet released the names of the victim or the survivors, and an investigation into the cause of the capsizing was expected to be launched in the coming days.
Questions remained about why the ferry began taking on water almost immediately after departing from the harbour, and whether any mechanical failure, weather conditions, or overloading could have contributed to the disaster. Survivors and witnesses were likely to provide crucial information as investigators sought to piece together the chain of events that led to the vessel overturning with so many people on board
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