Bodies recovered in north drowning incident

A body found on Wednesday off the Kyrenia coast in the north belongs to a missing young man who drowned along with his girlfriend on the weekend in rough seas.

According to Turkish Cypriot media, a young man and a young woman died at sea on Saturday after a drowning incident near Alagadi, east of Kyrenia.

Mehmet Ceyhan, described as a 27-year-old Turkish national, went to the beach on Saturday morning with his girlfriend, 22-year-old Gozde Nur Binbir, an English major at Near East University, as well as two other friends.

Friends told media the group had gone to spend a day at the beach after an ease of coronavirus lockdown measures but had no plans to go in the water due to windy conditions and rough seas.

“But suddenly, Gozde and Mehmet took off their clothes and ran into the water, we had no opportunity to warn them,” a friend said.

After a while, the young couple began to drift apart due to powerful waves, with Gozde starting to sink minutes later and Mehmet going after her.

As he was not able to locate her, reports said their friends called for help. Hours later rescuers pulled Gozde’s lifeless body out of the water.

The search went on for Mehmet but operations were suspended due to poor weather conditions according to media. His body was discovered on Wednesday, five days later, some 400 metres off the coastline.

Local authorities have warned beachgoers to keep out of the water due to poor weather conditions.