Filo Jet death toll rises to 13 off Kyrenia, with 15 still missing

The death toll from the sinking of the passenger ferry Filo Jet rose to 13 on Saturday after crews recovered another body, Northern Cyprus Prime Minister Unal Ustel said. Fifteen people remained missing. Ustel said search and rescue had not paused. The wreck has been located 554 metres down off Kyrenia, known in Turkish as Girne.

The high-speed catamaran left Girne around midday on 30 August for Tasucu, on Turkey's southern coast, with 259 passengers and eight crew, 267 people in all. The sailing had been postponed from 29 August because of weather. Shortly after departure the vessel began taking on water about 7.5 kilometres offshore, tried to turn back, capsized and sank. Rescuers brought 239 people ashore in the first hours. Nine deaths were confirmed in the first official tallies. The count then rose as divers and ships worked the site.

Nine vessels and 11 aircraft have been part of the later search. Turkish naval ships TCG Isin and TCG Alemdar have used remotely operated vehicles. Teams are trying to recover the voyage data recorder. The captain, seven crew and Filo Denizcilik's managing director were arrested by Northern Cyprus police on suspicion of causing death through negligence. Warrants were issued for seven more people. The unrecognised Northern Cyprus Council of Ministers declared three days of mourning after the sinking. Public Works and Communications Minister Erhan Arikli was dismissed by Ustel on 2 September.

The depth is the hard limit on what comes next. At 554 metres a wreck is not a dive site for ordinary rescue teams. It is a remotely operated vehicle problem. Each body recovered now is a product of that equipment and of time. Fifteen missing names may still be in the hull, in the water column, or already lost to current. Ustel's Saturday update moved one name from missing to dead. It did not close the list.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974. The ferry ran from a port in the north to the Turkish mainland. That route is ordinary life for families who treat Girne and Mersin as two ends of a commute. It is also a jurisdictional maze. The investigation sits with authorities in a state recognised only by Ankara. The ships doing the deep search are Turkish navy. Any later trial of the captain and company officers will be read in Nicosia, Athens and Brussels as well as in Lefkosa.

Weather on 29 August was bad enough to delay the sailing by a day. The fact that the ship then sank on the rescheduled day is the point investigators will test against the company's decision to go. Taking on water minutes after leaving harbour is not a mid-sea mystery. It is a departure-condition question: loading, hatches, speed in residual swell, and whether a high-speed catamaran should have left at all.

Filo Denizcilik said it was deeply saddened. That sentence does not address the arrests. Negligence causing death is the charge the local police have already written. The black box, if it comes up, will decide how much of that charge is seamanship and how much is design or maintenance.

For families the Saturday number is the only one that counts. Thirteen confirmed dead. Fifteen still missing. A wreck on the bottom at 554 metres, six days after the ferry left Girne and did not arrive in Tasucu.