The busy streets of the Fatih district of Istanbul beside the Galata Bridge and Golden Horn with Yeni Cami, a landmark Istanbul Mosque. Photo / Getty Images
The busy streets of the Fatih district of Istanbul beside the Galata Bridge and Golden Horn with Yeni Cami, a landmark Istanbul Mosque. Photo / Getty Images
The hotel where a family of Turkish-German tourists were staying when they suffered suspected poisoning that killed the mother and two children, has been evacuated, local media reported.
All guests staying at the unnamed hotel in the Fatih neighbourhood near Istanbul’s historic peninsula were relocated to other hotels, BirGunnewspaper said, without saying how many people were involved.
Another two tourists staying at the same hotel were taken to hospital on Saturday local time after coming down with nausea and vomiting, the paper said, without elaborating.
The family fell ill earlier in the week 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 6 and 3, died on Thursday local time 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 on X.
Different media reports focused on 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.
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.
Police said the family was Turkish, but living in Germany. They had come to Istanbul on holiday.
