Elderly Turkish couple reunited at nursing home after 77 years

KAHRAMANMARAŞ

AA photos

A 92-year-old man and a 95-year-old woman have tied the knot in Turkey's southeast as they were reunited after 77 years at a nursing home, which they even attempted to escape to marry.

Mustafa Karakoyun was 15 years old when he had first met Döndü Kıraç, who was 18 years old then, in the southeastern province of Kahramanmaraş in 1938, according to Anadolu Agency. Karakoyun wanted to marry Kıraç, but the girl's father refused.


The young man then served in the Turkish army for four years. After he completed his mandatory military service, he returned home, only to see that his childhood love was married with children. Extremely disappointed, Karakoyun moved away and married another woman in another town.

77 years passed and the detached couple met again in a nursing home in Kahramanmaraş. "Mustafa, what are you doing here?" asked Kıraç, according to the man's account quoted by Anadolu Agency.

"I don't know you. Who are you?" the man replied.

"I am Döndü. How can't you recognize me?" the woman reacted.

The reunion quickly rekindled the old love between the couple, whose spouses had died long ago, according to Karakoyun, who also noted that the woman had soon wanted to leave the nursing home together. 

The couple tried to escape one night but security personnel stopped them. "The manager of the nursing home called me and said what we did was wrong. I told him I would escape with Döndü if we were not allowed to leave," Karakoyun said.


With the intervention of the local mayor, the children of the man and the woman were convinced. The elderly couple were now allowed to leave the nursing home and finally got married.

"I pray God that all lovers meet in the end even it takes 80 years," Karakoyun told the agency with his wife at their new home in Kahramanmaraş's Çardak neighborhood.