TNT Coronavirus Edition: 3 Turk Sailors Missing in Red Sea Since April 25

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(TürkSail website, 1 June 2020)

//Ed. note: yet another example of the collateral damage
COVID-19 has caused.//

Massawa in 1913 click here for a recent 3-part TNT
series.

Italians in the Red Sea click here for another TNT report
from the early 1900s.


            Penisula di Buri island is out there somewhere.

About six months ago Izmir sailor Selim Ekmekçioğlu (64) set out on
his 13-meter catamaran for a world tour, together with Bodrum sailors
İbrahim Iğnak (63) and Lütfü Erman Atamer (62).

On their return toward Turkey, after replenishing their fuel and
provisions at Djibouti, without incident, the three sailors were barred
from using the Suez Canal because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Turning back south in the Red Sea, the sailors could not land in Egypt
because of the outbreak but when their sails needed repair after they
were caught in a bad storm, the three Turks made port at Massawa in
Eritrea, where soldiers took the three into custody for some unknown
reason.

The Turkish embassies in Eritrea and Djibouti looked into the situation
and learned that the three sailors were taken to the island of Penisila di
Buri, 29 miles away from Massawa in the Dahlak archipelago.
Nevertheless, there has been no word from the three since 25 April,
when Ekmekçioğlu sent this message to his son before his and his
friends' cellphones were confiscated: "tell your Mother our phones
have been taken and they're bringing us to an island 29 miles away."

Bodrum captain Demir Çelebi observed that "it's quite odd that our
friends were taken to an island 29 miles away.  It is an area where
pirates roam free and no one is in charge."


                                   Sail on sailors...