Investigation of foreign national forensic cases in Denizli

Foreign visitors come to Turkey mostly for sightseeing, entertainment, sportive and cultural activities, followed by visiting relatives and friends. In addition, they may come for residence, health tourism, education, marriage and family residence permit, work, international or temporary protection. The extent of global human mobility for both migration and touristic purposes is increasing day by day. Therefore, foreign nationals in our country need forensic medicine services as well as other services from time to time. We retrospectively analyzed the medicolegal reports of 271 cases of foreign nationals who applied to Directorate of Forensic Medicine Council and Pamukkale University Department of Forensic Medicine between 2011-2020 and 86 cases of foreign nationals who were autopsied in Pamukkale University Hospital Autopsy Room. It was observed that the number of autopsies performed on foreign nationals constituted 2.38% of all autopsies. The most common country of origin of foreign national death cases was Syria with 25.6%. This was followed by Iran with 17.4%, Afghanistan with 12.8% and Russia with 8.1%. Among the foreign national death cases, 70.9% (61) were residing in Turkey and 29.1% (25) were tourists. The most common cause of death among foreign deaths was natural origin (43%), followed by accidental deaths (37.2%). Homicide and suicide were the other causes of death with 9.3%. In 1 case, the origin of death could not be determined. In the case of foreign nationals, 316 reports were issued for 271 cases. The most common country of origin of the applicants was Iran with 33.2%. This was followed by Afghanistan with 22.1% and Syria with 21.4%. Of the applicants, 48.3% applied for reports on intentional injury, 19.6% under Article 31 of the TPC, 18.5% on negligent injury, 6.3% on determination of bone age, 3% on sexual abuse, 1.5% on accident, 1.1% under Article 32 of the TPC, 0.4% on accidental maturity and 0.4% on suicide attempt. Three cases constituted the other category with a rate of 1.1%. The aim of this study was to evaluate the data of foreign national cases who underwent forensic autopsy and applied to Forensic Medicine Units in Denizli province in the light of political, geographical and socioeconomic aspects, to create scientific data on this subject, to contribute to domestic and foreign studies in this field, and to determine the preventable causes of deaths and outpatient clinic applications and to make suggestions about the necessary measures.