Just hours after a passenger ferry capsized in waters off the breakaway Turkish Cypriot coast, leaving at least eight people dead and 18 others unaccounted for, survivors shared harrowing firsthand accounts of chaos and panic as they fought to escape the sinking vessel on Monday.
The incident unfolded Sunday afternoon, when the ship carrying 267 passengers and crew departed Kyrenia – also called Girne in Turkish – the main northern Cypriot port, bound for the Turkish coastal town of Tasucu. Roughly 7.5 kilometers from the Cypriot shore, the vessel suddenly began to list and take on water after passengers reported hearing a series of loud bangs originating from lower decks. It ultimately capsized, triggering a massive cross-border rescue operation involving Turkish coast guard vessels, military assets, and local first responders from northern Cyprus.
Serkan Kunduraci, one of the passengers who survived by climbing through a cracked window to escape the sinking hull, described scenes of utter despair unfolding in the frigid water to Turkey’s DHA news agency. “I saw people who couldn’t swim drown right in front of me,” he said. “Some people were too panicked to even grab a life jacket, others jumped straight into the sea out of blind fear. We tried to pull an elderly man to safety, but we couldn’t reach him in time – he drowned too. We watched whole families, young boys and little girls, drown out in the open water.”
Kunduraci added that the crew initially downplayed the severity of the issue after inspecting the leak, telling passengers the problem was nothing more than a loose gasket. By the time the evacuation order was issued, widespread panic had already broken out. He explained that the captain attempted to steer the listing vessel back to Kyrenia port, but the tilt only grew steeper as more water flooded the hull. “There was screaming everywhere, and dozens of people were trapped in the rear of the ship, blocked by piles of other passengers who couldn’t get out,” Kunduraci said. “The people crushed underneath never made it out.”
Another survivor, Deniz Ozpolat, echoed those accounts of chaos, noting that crowds rushed the exits before anyone could issue clear directions. “We tried to get to the exit, but there was already a massive crush of people,” he told DHA. “We couldn’t find any life jackets, and at first the doors were shut on us, trapping us inside. When they finally opened, we jumped into the water. The ship tilted sharply and went down not long after. We had to break windows to pull other people out, and we saw whole families with small children stranded out in the water.”
Local rescuer Muhammed Ozcelik, who operates a nearby water sports company and was among the first responders to reach the capsized vessel, said his crew pushed their small boat far past its safe capacity to pull as many survivors from the water as possible. “We tried to do everything we could, more than we were able to,” Ozcelik said. “People were begging to be pulled aboard, shouting ‘take me too’, but our boat was already past capacity. We still took on as many as we could – everyone was fighting just to stay alive.”
Footage broadcast on Turkish media outlets showed survivors clad in bright orange life vests standing on the overturned hull of the ferry, which is owned by Turkish maritime operator Filo Denizcilik, waiting for rescue. Many survivors were later brought to shore aboard small local pleasure craft that joined the rescue effort.
Unal Ustel, prime minister of the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus – a breakaway entity recognized only by Turkey – announced late Sunday that a full formal investigation into the disaster has been launched, and all eight crew members of the ferry have been taken into custody. “Every single detail of this incident will be probed thoroughly,” Ustel said. “Even the smallest act of negligence will be uncovered, and anyone found responsible for what happened will face consequences.”
Ustel added that Turkish authorities were providing full support for the ongoing search and recovery operation for the 18 missing passengers, and described the incident as the deadliest maritime disaster in the recorded history of Cyprus. This disaster comes amid the long-standing division of the island of Cyprus, which has been split along ethnic lines since a 1974 Turkish invasion. Turkish Cypriots declared independence in 1983, and Turkey maintains a deployment of more than 35,000 troops in the northern region.