Hotel evacuated after tourists die of suspected poisoning

Hagia Sophia dominates Istanbul's skyline, with the Golden Horn in the foreground, Monday, April 12, 2021.

The hotel where a family of Turkish-German tourists were staying when they suffered suspected poisoning that killed the mother and two children, was evacuated Saturday, local media reported.

All guests staying at the unnamed hotel in the Fatih neighbourhood near Istanbul’s historic peninsula were relocated to other hotels, BirGun newspaper said, without saying how many people were involved.

Another two tourists staying at the same hotel were taken to hospital Saturday after coming down with nausea and vomiting, the paper said, without elaborating.

The family fell ill on Wednesday after eating several popular street food dishes in the waterside neighbourhood of Ortakoy, at the foot of a bridge spanning the Bosphorus.

They were taken to hospital but the two children, aged six and three, died on Thursday and the mother a day later, the justice minister said.

The father remained in “critical condition”, Istanbul’s regional health chief Abdullah Emre Guner said late Friday on X.

Different media reports looked at various foods the family was thought to have eaten.

But investigators have also discovered that a room on the ground floor of the hotel had recently been sprayed with pesticides, the Hurriyet news website reported Saturday.

Police had detained a hotel employee and two pest control workers, raising the number of people held in connection with the incident to seven, it added.

They said the family was Turkish, but living in Germany. They had come to Istanbul on holiday.