A passenger ferry carrying hundreds of people capsized shortly after leaving the Northern Cypriot port of Kyrenia early Sunday, leaving at least six passengers dead and triggering a large-scale cross-border search and rescue operation between Turkey and the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Preliminary casualty figures shared with Turkish media by Unal Ustel, prime minister of the TRNC, confirm six fatalities so far. Ustel told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu News Agency that the vessel was carrying 267 total passengers and crew when it overturned almost immediately after departing for the southern Turkish port of Tasucu. As of Sunday afternoon, 172 people had been pulled from the Mediterranean waters alive, with rescue teams continuing efforts to locate and evacuate the remaining people on board.
Ali Murat Basceri, Turkey’s ambassador to Nicosia, independently confirmed the deaths in an interview with Turkish public broadcaster TRT, though he declined to share a specific toll. In his remarks, Basceri noted that the large majority of the 259 recorded passengers had already been pulled from the water by rescue teams.
Footage broadcast across multiple Turkish television outlets on Sunday shows the fully overturned ferry floating off the coast, with dozens of survivors clinging to the orange inverted hull while wearing life vests. Multiple civilian and official rescue vessels were deployed to the scene, with witnesses reporting calm, sunny conditions at the time of the incident. As of Sunday, officials have not released any details on what caused the vessel to capsize.
The TRNC, a self-declared state that controls the northern third of divided Cyprus, is recognized exclusively by the international community by Turkey. The island has been split along political lines since 1974, when Turkey deployed military forces to northern Cyprus in response to a Greek nationalist coup backed by the Athens government that sought to annex the entire island to Greece. Today, regular air and sea passenger routes connect the TRNC directly to Turkey.
Local emergency authorities have activated full response protocols to handle the disaster. “All necessary preparations are being made for a swift response from rescue and health services,” the TRNC Ministry of Health said in an official statement Sunday, adding that all hospitals across the territory had been placed on high alert to receive injured survivors and provide emergency care as needed.
Turkey, which provides political, economic and logistical support to the TRNC, has mobilized its own resources to support the operation. Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz announced via the social platform X Sunday that the Turkish government was providing all necessary assistance to the search and rescue effort.
The disaster comes just one day before a planned visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the TRNC, scheduled for Monday. The trip will mark Erdogan’s first visit to the territory since 2023, and is intended to hold talks with newly elected TRNC President Tufan Erhurman, who won the territory’s presidential election last October.