ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) — At least 124 people have died in Ankara and Istanbul in the past six weeks after drinking bootleg alcohol, and dozens more are in intensive care, state news agency Anadolu said Monday.

Some 54 people have died in the capital Ankara, where another 40 were fighting for their lives in hospital, it said.

Earlier this month, Anadolu said 70 others had died in Istanbul.

Such poisonings are relatively common in Turkey, where clandestine production is widespread and bootleg alcohol is often tainted with methanol, a toxic substance that can cause blindness, liver damage and death.

The chief public prosecutor’s office in Ankara arrested 28 suspects in connection with the production and sale of counterfeit alcohol, all but three of whom were later granted conditional release, Anadolu said.

On February 7, Ankara’s governor had given a toll of 33 dead and 20 others in intensive care, with a spokesman for his office saying the figure was “from the beginning of the year”.

Last month, 38 people died in the space of four days in Istanbul after drinking counterfeit alcohol in a surge of cases that by January 17, had left another 26 people in intensive care.

There were no official updates for another three weeks until February 7 when Anadolu said the number of dead had jumped to 70, with another 21 being treated in hospital, eight of whom were in intensive care.

Since then, there have been no further updates on their fate.

Although Turkey is a nominally secular country, alcohol taxes have risen sharply under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a Muslim who vociferously opposes drinking.

A litre bottle of raki, Turkey’s aniseed-flavoured national liquor, bought at a supermarket currently costs around 1,300 lira ($37.20) in a country where the minimum wage only recently hit $600 per month.

Critics say such high prices are fuelling the production of moonshine.