links to original Turkish article.
(Milliyet Newspaper, 11 July 2020)
click here for the related TNT report.
The glamorous (!) ending to a world tour...
Selim Ekmekçioğlu, İbrahim Iğnak and Erman Atamer, 3 Turkish
amateur sailors, had an adventure in the Indian Ocean and the Red
Sea that was worthy of a film.
The story began when Ekmekçioğlu, an agriculture engineer, left
Sığacık, south of Izmir, in his 13-meter catamaran on 2 September
2017. Ekmekçioğlu took his boat 'Murat Reis' through Gibraltar to
the Atlantic Ocean and reached Malaysia on the other side of the
Pacific Ocean two years ago.
Ekmekçioğlu flew back to Turkey and returned to Malaysia with his
wife Şeyda. On 28 December 2019, the couple set sail for Sri Lanka
and spent 14 days in the Indian Ocean. Şeyda hanım became ill and
returned to Turkey, while İbrahim Iğnak and Erman Atamer flew to
Sri Lanka to join Ekmekçioğlu in order to complete the world tour
with him.
On 10 April, the three sailors reached Egypt but were denied entry
because of the COVID-19 outbreak and sought refuge in Eritrea,
one of the world's most dangerous nations, to re-fuel. However,
two Eritrean soldiers took the Turkish sailors into custody on 25
April at the port of Masawa and held them incommunicado on a
nearby island for 57 days. (!)
...that began this way.
Through the efforts of the Turkish Foreign Ministry and the
ambassadors in Eritrea and Djibouti, the three Turks were freed
and reached Djibouti on 23 June. But because of COVID and
security concerns, return to Turkey in the 'Murat Reis' proved to
be impossible so a call was put out to ships in the Red Sea area.
One of them, the M/V İnce Kastamonu, agreed to take Iğnak and
Ekmekçioğlu back to Turkey after special permission was given
for civilians to ride on a commercial vessel. As for Atamer, he is
remaining in the Djibouti area to take care of repairs to the
catamaran and will return to Turkey at a later date.
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