For over a month the whereabouts of three Turkish cruisers and their 40ft catamaran transiting north through the Red Sea has been unknown.

Last contact with their families on 25 April was from Massawa, Eritrea, where they had taken shelter from bad weather.

Murat Reis (a Lagoon 450) under Turkish flag is crewed by Selim Ekmekçioğlu, İbrahim Iğnak and Lütfi Erman Atamer. They are on the last leg of their circumnavigation back to Turkey.

As they approached Eritrea looking for refuge due to a severe storm, they informed the Turkish embassy in Eritrea that they needed to stop and were given approval to enter Massawa.

Text messages from the crew to their families on 25 April indicated that on entry “soldiers” boarded the catamaran and told the crew their yacht was being redirected to to Penisula di Buri Island, 29 miles from Massawa. Their phones were taken away.

Since then no more news has been received from the sailors. Their anxious families have appealed to the Turkish embassy to assist with locating the boat and getting the crew released. The only substantial information discovered is that the boat and crew were taken to a region in the Dehlek archipelago and they were in good health.

Hürriyet Daily News reports that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu wrote to his Eritrean counterpart, as Turkish Ambassador Aykut Kumbaroğlu’s attempts have failed due to the authority void in the country, however, Eritrean authorities have not yet responded.

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News Sources:

• Turkish adventurers on world tour held in Eritrea – Hürriyet Daily News (June 01, 2020)
• ‘Dad, you’ve been gone for 35 days, we can’t breathe … “ – hurriyet.com (May 31, 2020)

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This information has not been independently verified.