The ninth body which was pulled from the wreckage of a ferry which sank off the coast of Kyrenia was late on Wednesday night identified as Ismail Kurt, one of the two Cypriots who had been unaccounted for after the accident.
Rescue efforts continued on Thursday morning, led by the two Turkish deep-sea rescue vessels the TCG Isin and the TCG Alemdar, with various aerial and marine assets also having been deployed to the area for five consecutive days in the hope of recovering the 19 people who remain missing.
Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel had promised on Wednesday evening that search-and-rescue efforts “will continue 24/7”, while also stressing that visibility is “very limited” at 550 metres below the surface of the sea, where the sunken ferry remains.
Asked whether any other bodies have been seen by rescuers, he said that “no other findings have been encountered so far”.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Turkish Cypriot ‘health ministry’ had said that three people remain in hospital after reaching the shore alive after the ferry sank.
Exactly 259 passengers and eight crew members were on board the ferry when it capsized and sank within minutes of departing the new port of Kyrenia shortly after midday on Sunday.
Shortly after leaving the new port of Kyrenia on Wednesday evening, Ustel announced that he had removed Erhan Arikli from his post as ‘transport minister’, with investigations into the cause of the accident now ongoing.
“We cannot allow the shadow of suspicion to arise during the investigation process,” he said, before then stressing that “no one of whose duties we have relieved can be declared guilty until the judiciary delivers its verdict”.
Arikli later said that Ustel’s decision to relieve him of his duties was not “ethical”, and convened a meeting of his party the YDP’s central administrative board late on Wednesday night to put forward a motion to withdraw its support for the ruling coalition.
The central administrative board acquiesced, with this decision now expected to be rubber-stamped by the party’s decision-making assembly later on Thursday.
Without the support of the YDP, Ustel’s administration will have a majority of just three in the Turkish Cypriot legislature, relying on the support of 23 UBP members, two DP members, and one independent, Hasan Tosunoglu, of the body’s 49 current members.
Ustel currently plans to hold legislative elections on December 6, though with the coalition’s majority now much smaller, he may be forced into bringing that date forward.
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