A ferry carrying 267 passengers and crew capsized off the northern coast of Cyprus, leaving at least eight people dead and 20 missing as rescuers kept searching the water on Monday. The vessel, traveling from Kyrenia to Tasucu, began taking on water shortly after leaving port on Sunday.
For Ayten Bicer, the disaster unfolded in seconds. She said she was trying to hold onto her daughter as the ferry overturned, a suitcase fell on her during the chaos, and she briefly managed to grab the child’s foot before she slipped away. Among the missing were Miray Bicer, 12, and Mehmet Asaf Bicer, 6, two siblings whose family had been visiting Cyprus.
The death toll and missing count gave the rescue operation a hard edge because the ferry was crowded, the water was rough enough to overturn the vessel, and the search was still active a day later. Survivors were pulled from the water and from the overturned ferry itself, but officials later raised the number missing from 18 to 20 after checking passenger records against the list of survivors.
That accounting mattered because it showed how quickly the scene remained unsettled. Even after the records were reviewed, it was still unclear whether anyone was trapped inside the sunken ferry, and the wreckage lay in water more than 1,600 feet deep, far beyond any easy recovery effort. Tufan Erhurman said a ship from Turkey equipped to assist with work on the seabed was expected to arrive on Tuesday.
The deep-water location means the search is likely to stay difficult even if the weather holds and teams keep finding survivors’ traces. For the families waiting for answers, the next step is no longer just rescue but the far slower task of reaching what remains below the surface.
