Friday 15 / November / 2024
Muscat: Tourists from Oman caught up in the Turkey coup are staying indoors in the wake of a failed military coup that left 161 people dead.
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Almost 3,000 military personnel have been detained along with a number of judges and senior government officials who, it is alleged, staged a military coup on Friday.
Soldiers took to the streets in cities across Turkey on Friday and forced the national broadcaster to announce the coup on TV, before closing down the station.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged citizens to reclaim the streets. Sporadic gun battles could be heard on the streets.
In a statement, Oman’s Foreign Ministry said that citizens in Ankara were safe and urged them to stay away from the site of skirmishes and contact the embassy in case of an emergency.
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The ministry plans to evacuate Omanis through private aircraft when Turkish airports open. It also said it would bear the expenses of Omanis if their stay was extended due to the situation.
Oman resident Stephanie Peters was having dinner at a cafe with an Irish classmate and two Turkish friends in Izmir, on the country’s west coast, on Friday evening when she suddenly noticed that people around them were starting to hurriedly pay their bills and leave. Stephanie, who works in Sur University College, said Izmir, the third most populous city in Turkey, was relatively calm compared to Istanbul and Ankara.
“While having dinner, we noticed the other people dining all started checking their phones and watching the television in the corner, then people started paying their bills and leaving in a hurry,” Stephanie, on a six-week teaching course in the country, said.
She promptly left with the classmate and they got inside for the night.
Along the way, she noticed police personnel all over and the streets “becoming deserted very fast”.
“Everybody was calling their family to check on them. I called my sister and mother in Canada on Skype but can’t use Skype to call my husband in Oman because there was no connection,” she added. Outside on the road, she heard police announcing via loud hailers that people should stay inside their homes. “But it’s not a curfew or anything,” she said.
She added that by Saturday morning everything seemed quiet. “Stores are closed and people are staying indoors. No disturbances here last night that I know of but lots of cars were driving around honking and shouting happily when people heard about the coup. The internet went down and then came back up,” she said.
Stephanie has no plans to leave Turkey. “I’m doing a six week teaching course. I have been here one week and will stay five weeks more. I have no plans to leave early right now - I think staying away from the airports is a good idea and where I am is safe enough. I will be in contact with my embassy though,” she said.
Popular destination
Turkey is among the more popular tourist destinations for Omanis, logging around 15,000 to 20,000 tourists every year.
Travel industry sources said about 200 passengers take flights to Turkey from the city every day for business and leisure.
The attempted coup crumbled on Saturday after crowds answered President Tayyip Erdogan’s call to take to the streets to support him and dozens of rebel soldiers abandoned their tanks in the main city of Istanbul.
At least 161 people were killed in violence that erupted on Friday after a faction of the armed forces attempted to seize power, officials said.
Mehmed Zingal, Country Manager of Turkish Airlines in Oman, said that they had to cancel a Saturday morning flight to Turkey as the airport was closed.
“Around 110 were scheduled to fly to Turkey on the same plane, however, they were adjusted in other airlines while some were moved to a hotel in Muscat,” he said.
He added that all tourists from Oman are safe in Turkey. “Everything is returning to normal and everyone from Oman is safe,” he said.
