Turkey’s foreign minister on Tuesday said 98 Turkish nationals have died overseas from COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
“We have evacuated over 20,000 Turkish citizens from more than 50 countries,” Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told the public broadcaster’s English service, TRT World, without elaborating.
There are nearly 10,000 more Turkish citizens stranded in other countries, Çavuşoğlu said, adding that Turkey would continue to evacuate its citizens abroad in line with the country’s quarantine policy.
Turkey places evacuees under a 14-day quarantine after being brought back from abroad as part of measures against the spread of the coronavirus.
The death toll in Turkey from the coronavirus has increased to 214, while the number of confirmed coronavirus cases surged to 13,531, the Health Ministry announced on Tuesday.