Ships carrying civilians evacuated from Lebanon arrives in Türkiye

The first of the amphibious ships carrying civilians evacuated from Lebanon has reached Türkiye's southern port of Mersin.

The TCG Bayraktar and TCG Sancaktar left the port of Beirut, where the evacuation operation was carried out, and docked at Mersin’s port on Thursday.

The 588 people on board in TCG Bayraktar and 378 people on board in TCG Sancaktar will disembark after the completion of procedures.

Those disembarking from the first ship were greeted by Deputy Foreign Minister Burhanettin Duran, Mersin Governor Ali Hamza Pehlivan and other officials.

At the welcome ceremony, Duran expressed great satisfaction for safely receiving the civilians after a long and exhausting journey.

"These two ships have also delivered nearly 300 tons of humanitarian aid to Beirut. In this context, we are continuing to record the evacuation requests received by our consulate's call centre," he said.

"If needed, we are prepared to organise new evacuations based on future applications," he added.

Sources at the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that around 1,900 Turkish citizens had declared their intention to be evacuated from Lebanon.

300 tonnes of humanitarian aid

They said that 966 people, including 878 citizens of Türkiye and 24 from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), were evacuated by the Turkish ships.

They added that news that foreign citizens were given priority in boarding the ships was absolutely not true.

The TCG Bayraktar and TCG Sancaktar delivered 300 tonnes of humanitarian aid materials collected at the initiative of the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) to the port of Beirut.

After unloading the cargo, the ships returned to Türkiye accompanied by two frigates and two patrol ships.

Israel has been mounting massive air strikes across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,323 people, injuring over 3,700 others and displacing more than 1.2 million people.

The aerial campaign was an escalation in yearlong cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of Tel Aviv’s brutal offensive on Gaza, which has killed over 42,000 people, mostly women and children.