A stunning remote village in Turkey has left medics baffled as more than half the population are deaf and non-verbal. Gokova – a picturesque village with stunning turquoise waters and soaring mountains sits nearly 450 miles from Istanbul with just 120 villagers.
But it has such profound disability problems that signing has become the standard language, with some blaming the unusually high rate of deafness on inbreeding in a region where newcomers are incredibly rare. Others believe Gokova’s residents have been slowly poisoned by generations of water pollution.
Heavy metals like iron and arsenic and chemical contamination from industrial waste have been linked to deafness.
Local mayor Eyup Tozn said: “I think this is not caused by inter-marriage, but because of unhealthy water sources.
“We’ve learned to rely on sign language as a community but any outsiders have trouble communicating.”
Villager Sati Tozun added: “I have four children with disabilities and one of them has three children, all deaf and mute.
“My sister-in-law has children with disabilities. This village is completely disabled.”
Neighbour Ali Tuzun, who has no hearing loss, added: “Most of this community is disabled. It’s hard for them to get along.
“They get help from the government, but they’re not showing the problem enough interest.”
The neighbourhood bears a striking similarity to Dhadkaie, an isolated village in Kashmir which is home to around 2,800 residents and believed to have the highest prevalence of deaf-mutism in the world.
Villagers say they bang on drums when babies are born, searching for any sign of a response to the beat – crying or a shake of the head – to figure out whether the newborn is deaf or not.
Doctors have theorised that the condition is the result of generations of intermarriage within Dhadkaie’s small community.
According to government data, at least 83 people, mostly women, are affected by a defective gene, impacting 55 families in the village.
Village chief Muhammad Haneef told The Telegraph in 2022: “Birth of a child is a celebration in every family but here it brings horror. We anxiously want to see that newborn is not deaf,” adding “It feels awful when you have a family where most people can’t speak. This silence is killing, painful.”
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