Our round–up of the local news for the last week.

Beach Clean Fills Hundreds of Bags

A major cleaning operation took place this week in the coves around Göcek when supporters of the Clean Seas Assocation, TURMEPA, together with local students, 400 people in total, picked up rubbish from the beaches and the sea bed – filling hundreds of bags.

Tourist Numbers Up: Brits Still Top

The new Governor of Muğla, Mr. Şahin, had a pleasant announcement to make in his first week at work, when he told the press that figures for the first five months of this year show that the number of tourists visiting Muğla is up 16% on last year.

To the end of May 2010 a total of 526,119 tourists entered Muğla of which the majority, 310,195, were British.

Abducted, Assaulted but Alive

A 26-year-old man living in Günlükbaşı was found early one morning this week, with his arms and feet tied up, in a cemetery.

Apparently the man, Süleyman Demir, got up to go to his job laying block paving, left his house, and was next seen when police found him in the graveyard a couple of hours later.

In the interim he had been beaten and his stomach cut with a razor, his wallet and shoes stolen.

Plus his family had been sent a text message that read:

“Süleyman has been killed. You’ll find his body in the cemetery.”

The family contacted the police who quickly found Süleyman, very much alive despite his injuries.

An ambulance was called, and the only thing reported about the circumstances leading to his discovery in the cemetery, is that Süleyman told police,

“I was beaten up somewhere else then dumped here.”