A total of 88 tourists from Russia died in Turkey over the past summer season, the Crime Russia news website reported on Wednesday, citing RIA Novosti.
Alexei Erkhov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, connected a growing number of deaths to an increased tourist flow since approximately 6 million Russians visited Turkey in 2018, while the 2019 figure is believed to be much higher.
Erkhov emphasized that most of the incidents had “commonplace causes.” According to the ambassador, the victims were mostly elderly people who end up in clinics with strokes and heart attacks caused by the abrupt climate change. Many fatal car accidents involving Russian tourists have also occurred.
A Rosstat report from Sept. 2 stated that Turkey was at the top of the list of Russian tourists’ favorite destinations. Finland came in second and Kazakhstan third.
The past month has seen several reports of deaths of Russians in Turkey, all of them children. A12-year-old girl drowned in a hotel pool when her hand got sucked into a pump. A 16-year-old Krasnoyarsk girl died in an Antalya hospital after she was taken with acute appendicitis. Another teenage girl drowned in the pool of a water park.