Mum and 2 kids die after eating street food while on holiday in Turkey

A tragedy has struck a family of four while they were on holiday in the Turkish city of Istanbul. Mum Cigdem Bocek, 27, and her two young children have died following a day out sampling the local cuisine at street stalls. After becoming violently ill at their hotel, Cigdem and her two children, Masal, three, and Kadir, six, were rushed to the hospital, but were later pronounced dead.

Dad Servet, 38, survived but is fighting for his life in hospital. The family, from Germany, arrived in Istanbul on November 9 and were exploring the Besiktas district in the North-east of the city, where they sampled the popular street snack midye - a dish of stuffed mussels served cold with lemon. They later visited a restaurant and ordered a mix of dishes, including kokorec, made from calf intestines, and tavuk tantuni, a type of Turkish chicken wrap. They also bought some Turkish delights from a shop in Fatih before returning to their hotel.

However, soon after, the children began suffering from nausea and vomiting. Cigdem and Servet rushed them to hospital, only to then start suffering from the symptoms themselves.

Following the tragedy, Istanbul’s Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office have launched a probe and has arrested seven people, including the street sellers. Food samples from the stalls and restaurants have been taken and are now being analysed by the Forensic Medicine Institute.

Cigdem, Masal and Kadir's bodies have also been sent to the institute for post-mortem examinations to determine the exact cause of death.

According to BirGun newspaper, two other tourists staying at the same hotel as the family were also hospitalised on Saturday (November 15) after displaying similar symptoms of nausea and vomiting.

This comes after foreign tourists were among the three people killed and 15 injured during rough sea conditions in Tenerife last week. On the morning of November 8, six French tourists were injured after they were swept into the water by a wave at Roque de Las Bodegas beach in Taganana, Santa Cruz de Tenerife. One person was airlifted to hospital with moderate injuries. Then at 3pm, 10 people - some cruise ship passengers that had arrived that morning - were swept into the sea at Puerto de la Cruz. A 75-year-old Dutch cruise ship passenger died at the scene.

Then, on Saturday, a British teenager was left in a critical condition after getting into difficulty while swimming in the sea during a school trip to Lloret de Mar, Catalonia, northern Spain.