ANKARA: A wide-ranging organ trade network led by Jordanian and Palestinian nationals in Istanbul has been busted by the Turkish authorities.
Ten people, four ringleaders and six individuals who were about to sell their organs or get transplants, were caught and four were immediately imprisoned.
The network was running the business using forged documents at a hospital in Beylikduzu, on the European side of Istanbul, in exchange for $50,000 per case.
The case came to light when Turkish doctors reported to the police department that combats migrant smuggling that the patient and the organ donor didn’t seem be relatives and had very poor communication.
The authorities turned to the Palestinian Consulate, which denied having provided such documents of kinship to the people caught.
Turkish police exposed the network by investigating hospital records and monitoring hotel locations near the hospital where illegal organ transplants were being carried out. The operation involved two raids at the hotel.
The ringleader, Hasan B., found the organ donors and receivers through his social media connections. Another person, Hasan Abu Z., welcomed people to Turkey and introduced the organ receivers to the physician, Ali Y.M., with the help of a middleman, Ahmad M. These four members of the network were arrested.
The network named their illegal trade “VIP Service from the hotel to the hospital,” eyeing clients from Arab countries while looking for people who could sell their organs. The blood groups of people in need of kidneys were also exposed in social media posts.
The network forged kinship and birth certificates to make them look as if they were from the foreign consulates.
Money and fake documents were confiscated during the operation. Out of the $50,000, $10,000 was given to the organ donor and $15,000 to the private hospital. The network made $25,000 on each case.
Six people who were kept by the network in a hotel in Istanbul were released on condition of judicial control. The patients were Jordanian and Palestinian nationals.
Unregulated organ trafficking and illegal transplant have shown a shocking trend in the region for a while. Last year, several Syrian refugees were found to be selling their organs on the black market out of desperation to survive financially.
Social media platforms, especially Facebook, were used extensively by organ brokers for illegal operations offering money to desperate refugees who would sell their livers or kidneys. However, the donors were only paid half the agreed price and usually left without care after the operation.
It is illegal to sell and buy human organs in Turkey. Any person who removes an organ from another person without his/her legal consent and any person who buys or sells an organ or acts as an intermediary for such activities faces a jail sentence of five to nine years, while those who make an announcement or engage in commercial advertising to secure organs can be imprisoned for up to one year.
For the operation to take place legally, the organ donor has to prove that he is a relative of the recipient. However, the trafficking networks prepare counterfeit documents to bypass Turkish laws.
Under the 2018 Declaration of Istanbul on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism, international organizations issued guidelines for health officials and policymakers, noting that “trafficking in human organs and trafficking in persons for organ removal should be prohibited and criminalized.”
Illegal organ transplant network busted in Istanbul
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Illegal organ transplant network busted in Istanbul
- Ten Palestinians and Jordanians arrested in operation by Turkish authorities
School materials enter Gaza after being blocked for two years, UN agency says
- Thousands of kits, including pencils, exercise books and wooden cubes to play with, have now entered the enclave, UNICEF said
GENEVA: The UN children’s agency said on Tuesday it had for the first time in two-and-a-half years been able to deliver school kits with learning materials into Gaza after they were previously blocked by Israeli authorities.
Thousands of kits, including pencils, exercise books and wooden cubes to play with, have now entered the enclave, UNICEF said.
“We have now, in the last days, got in thousands of recreational kits, hundreds of school-in-a-carton kits. We’re looking at getting 2,500 more school kits in, in the next week, because they’ve been approved,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said.
COGAT, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows into the Gaza Strip, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Children in Gaza have faced an unprecedented assault on the education system, as well as restrictions on the entry of some aid materials, including school books and pencils, meaning teachers had to make do with limited resources, while children tried to study at night in tents without lights, Elder said. During the conflict some children missed out on education altogether, facing basic challenges like finding water, as well as widespread malnutrition, amid a major humanitarian crisis.
“It’s been a long two years for children and for organizations like UNICEF to try and do that education without those materials. It looks like we’re finally seeing a real change,” Elder stated. UNICEF is scaling up its education to support half of children of school age — around 336,000 — with learning support. Teaching will mainly happen in tents, Elder said, due to widespread devastation of school buildings in the enclave during the war which was triggered by Hamas’ assault on Israel on October 2023.
At least 97 percent of schools sustained some level of damage, according to the most recent satellite assessment by the UN in July.
Israel has previously accused Hamas and other militant groups of systematically embedding in civilian areas and structures, including schools, and using civilians as human shields. The bulk of the learning spaces supported by UNICEF will be in central and southern areas of the enclave, as it remains difficult to operate in the north, parts of which were badly destroyed in the final months of the conflict, Elder said.
The Hamas-led attack in October 2023 killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s assault has killed 71,000 Palestinians, Gaza’s health authorities say. More than 20,000 children were reported killed, including 110 since the October 10 ceasefire last year, UNICEF said, citing official data.
