None of us want it, but despite all the precautions we take/will take when traveling abroad, the risk of having our bags or wallets stolen is quite high. It happened that your bag was stolen and your passport was inside, I will tell you from my own experience what you need to do if your passport is stolen abroad. During my trip to Italy in October 2023, I had my bag stolen in Verona and unfortunately my passport was in it.
If your passport is stolen abroad, what you need to do is; You have to go to the nearest police station, make a report, go to the nearest consulate with that report, get a temporary passport and return to Turkey with this temporary (pink) passport. After returning to Turkey, you can apply for a new passport in the standard way. How to apply for a passport? You can take a look at my post.
To see how my bag was stolen click here.
I explained the process briefly, but when I experienced it myself, I saw that it was not that easy to implement this summary, so I will go into details.
Contact the Consulate
If you are sure that your passport has been stolen abroad and you want to return to Turkey, you need to obtain a temporary passport. To get a temporary passport, the first thing you need to do is contact the nearest consulate.
I used to take note of the consulate phone numbers in the countries I was visiting before I set off. Now, when you change countries, even the GSM operator notifies the phone numbers via SMS. Worst case scenario, you can find contact information online.
My passport was stolen in Verona. I went to the Milan Consulate because Milan was the closest city to me. Different consulates may have different practices, so it is critical that you contact the consulate in the first stage.
Get your Citizenship Certificate from the Consulate
The consulate will ask you for a report stating that your passport is lost or stolen. You can get it from the nearest police station, but the police station will ask you for another ID. If you do not have another identity document or an official document to prove your identity, you need to get a document from the consulate that you are a Turkish citizen. Photographs and photocopies of your passport and/or ID are not accepted. If you have another ID with you, no problem, you do not need to take this document.
Even though I went to the consulate first, they did not give me this information. When I went to the police station, they told me that I needed this document, so I had to go back to the consulate, get this document and go to the police station again.
Moreover, our dear consulate charged me 27 Euros for this document and 10 Euros for the photo.
Make a Report at the Nearest Police Station
After you receive your document, go to a police station that can give a report in English, if possible, and make a report. However, unfortunately, the consulate I went to did not provide any guidance on this issue. The police station I went to gave me a report in Italian, and that worked for me.
However, if your international travel insurance includes theft coverage (it does not include standard contracts), it may be useful to have it in English if you are going to declare this report to the insurance. I didn't have insurance that covered theft, so it wasn't a problem that it was in Italian.
Although there was an English-speaking police officer at the police station I went to, the report was written in Italian, and most of what I said was not written down. Unfortunately, although I had the exact day, place and time information and I had the photos of the thieves, a report was written such as "his passport was lost in an unknown place at an unknown time".
IMPORTANT WARNING: If you have anything stolen in Italy, do not expect help from the police in finding your stolen items, they are not interested at all. If you experience a theft, thieves usually take the cash and any valuable electronics in the bag and leave the bag aside. Two days after my bag was stolen, it was found by someone and my passport was returned to me. The passport cannot be used because I have canceled it, but the visas in it are still valid, so it is very important to find it back.
Get Your Temporary Passport from the Consulate
If you've done your job this far, the rest is easier. You can return to the consulate to obtain a temporary passport with the report you received from the police station. Consulate to issue temporary passport; He/she asks you to provide your return tickets, a photograph and a petition. If you have a planned flight, bus or train, all you have to do is show your tickets, otherwise you will need to buy them.
If it is a day when the consulate is closed or you cannot go to the consulate; It is also possible to board the plane by getting a report directly from the airport police. I did not try it, but a follower shared this information.
Flight with Temporary (Pink) Passport
The consulate prepares a pink temporary passport for use only when returning to Turkey. You can now return to your country with this passport. I boarded the plane with this passport without encountering any questions or problems during check-in and passport passage at the airport.
When you enter Turkey, the passport police pierce your pink passport and give it back. It is not possible to use this passport again.
Get well soon, you are in Turkey now!
I hope no one will need this information, but I wanted to write it in case it could be useful.