Food poisoning outbreak continues at military barracks in Turkey's Manisa
A few weeks after the major food poisoning that affected more than 1000 soldiers at a military barrack in Turkey’s western province of Manisa, another outbreak was reported on Friday (June 16).
While the governor of the province announced that over 500 non-com soldiers sought medical treatment at hospitals for nausea and vomiting, Manisa MP of main opposition party CHP, Tur Yıldız Biçer, reported the number of soldiers affected to be in thousands.
MP Biçer, who visited the soldiers in hospitals in Manisa, criticized the government authorities for not terminating the contract of the firm providing meals to the base in the aftermath of the previous mass poisoning, which caused a young soldier to lose his life earlier in May.
Though it was detected by some doctors that the previous poisoning was due to salmonella infection, military medics and the governor of the province had claimed that it was due to seasonal stomach flu and that the soldiers influenced each other ‘psychologically.’
Prosecutor in Manisa announced over the weekend that 21 people from the firm providing the food were taken into custody and that over 700 soldiers were affected.
Minister of Defense, Fikri Işık, said in a statement delivered to the general assembly of the Parliament that the contract of the firm which served the meal to the Manisa First Infantry Training Brigade Command has now been cancelled.
The base will be closed for the following five days and the soldiers will be served packaged meals meanwhile, further reports indicate.
As BirGün reporter Burak Abatay reported on Sunday (June 18), one of the soldiers affected said, in a video recorded in front of the hospital: ‘They put the poisoned food in front of us… Now we’re going to go back there (to the barracks) and we’ll get beat up.’
Another soldier said nervously: ‘When we see a friend of ours fainting and try to help him, they (commanders) yell and command us to assemble.’
It was also claimed by another young soldier that while the commanders were served packaged and canned meals, the noncoms were not given the same food.
CHP MP Biçer also shared a post from her personal Twitter account saying that ‘soldiers told that they get threatened and beaten by commanders when they complain about the food served to them.’ In her message, Biçer also called on the Defense Minister to resign.
Proposal of CHP for the termination of the contract with the ROTA firm was rejected by the ruling party AKP and MHP earlier when the CHP MPs wanted to draw attention to the problem in the aftermath of the first outbreak earlier last month.