Pregnant woman dies after Turkey balcony fall as husband detained

Police in Turkey are investigating the death of an eight-months-pregnant woman after she fell from a fourth-floor balcony, with her husband in custody. Picture: iStock A heavily pregnant woman died after falling from the balcony of her home in western Turkey, with police detaining her husband, state news agency Anadolu reported Monday. The 35-year-old woman, who was eight months pregnant, died late on Sunday.

A Sudanese national, she was living with her husband in a fourth-floor flat in the city of Bursa. Her husband, 37, who was home at the time of the incident with their three-year-old daughter, was taken into custody with police opening an investigation, it said. The husband told police that his wife hadjumped outof the bedroom window.

In his testimony, he told police he met his wife in Sudan and they had been married for five years. He admitted to solvent abuse, saying the habit often caused fights including one on Sunday night. Two neighbours also reported hearing sounds of a fight, Anadolu said.

[paywall]

Turkey does not publish figures onfemicides, leaving the task to women’s organisations that collect data on murders and other deaths under suspicious circumstances from news reports. Figures from We Will Stop Femicides show that in the first seven months of this year, 215 women were killed or found dead in suspicious circumstances. Last year, 294 women were killed by men with another 297 dying in suspicious circumstances, such as falling from a balcony — which is frequently classed by the authorities as suicide or an unsolved death.

[/paywall]