Six more bodies have been recovered from the continuing search for victims of the Filo Jet ferry disaster since T-VINE’s last update, taking the death toll to 24 and leaving just four people still missing.
Two of the recently recovered victims have now been formally identified through DNA testing as Mahmut Demir and Özgür Gönül, the TRNC Prime Ministry announced on Tuesday, 6 October.
The identification brings some certainty for two families who have spent more than five weeks waiting for news since Filo Jet sank shortly after leaving Girne for Taşucu in southern Türkiye on 30 August.
A total of 267 passengers and crew were aboard the high-speed ferry. Of those, 239 were rescued alive. With 24 victims now recovered, the search continues for the remaining four people still unaccounted for.
The Prime Ministry offered its condolences to the families of Demir and Gönül and said DNA examinations were continuing to establish the identities of other bodies recovered during the search.
Mahmut Demir’s family had already held funeral prayers
Mahmut Demir, 28, had been travelling aboard Filo Jet with his 33-year-old brother Mustafa Demir, who remains among those missing.
The brothers were from Reyhanlı in Türkiye’s Hatay province, where their family had maintained a painful vigil following the disaster.
With neither brother's body recovered at the time, relatives held funeral prayers in absentia for Mahmut and Mustafa on 28 September at Harran Mosque in Reyhanlı. Their elder brother and other relatives received condolences outside the family home.
Mahmut's identification now ends that uncertainty for him, while the family continues to wait for news of Mustafa.
Özgür Gönül’s final video became evidence
The identification of Özgür Gönül is also particularly poignant because footage he recorded during Filo Jet's final moments has subsequently become part of the investigation into the disaster.
Gönül filmed conditions aboard the ferry and sent the video to his family while the emergency was unfolding. The footage, later obtained by investigators, appeared to show damage to the vessel's left-hand skid/hull structure and the panic among passengers. Police subsequently submitted the recording for expert examination as part of the criminal investigation.
His family had been waiting for confirmation of his fate ever since the sinking.
Four people still missing
The latest identification announcement came during another intense day of search operations off Girne.
Several bodies have been recovered in quick succession in recent days, with another victim located on Tuesday evening. The identities of four of these six victims have yet to be formally announced, with forensic and DNA work continuing.
Search teams have continued combing the wreck site and surrounding seabed more than a month after the tragedy.
The operation has increasingly concentrated on areas beyond the vessel itself after earlier searches established that some victims had been carried considerable distances from the wreck.
The criminal and technical investigation into the sinking is also continuing. Nine suspects remain under investigation, while experts are examining the vessel's previous structural damage and repairs, its watertight doors and data retrieved from its recovered Voyage Data Recorder.
No definitive cause of the Filo Jet sinking has yet been established.
For now, however, attention remains on identifying the recently recovered victims and finding the four people whose families are still waiting for them to come home.
Main image, top, of Özgür Gönül (left) and Mahmut Demir (right).
