A neighborhood in the eastern Turkish province of Van has been put under quarantine after a man who was recently released from jail in the eastern province of Ağrı tested positive for COVID-19, according to Turkish media reports.
The incident contradicts claims by Turkish authorities suggesting that there are no COVID-19 cases in Turkey’s prisons, from which tens of thousands of inmates have been released over the past weeks as part of measures to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak in Turkey’s overcrowded prisons. Thousands of prisoners including those jailed on politically motivated charges still remain behind bars as they were kept outside the scope of the COVID-19 release law.
The man, identified only by the initials as S.K., was hospitalized on Saturday after testing positive for COVID-19, while the Yalım Erez neighborhood in the İpekyolu district of Van, where S.K. lives, has been put under quarantine. There are 76 households in the neighborhood.