Boarding denied 😔

I was flying on Thursday with my child for the first time without my husband from luxembourg to cape town via Istanbul with Turkish Airlines. In Luxembourg they checked everything and everything was correct to fly, we arrived in istanbul at 22:30 and our flight to cape town was at 01:50, they only displayed the gate number where we needed to go around 00:20 after knowing which gate we had to go to we went to the gate, we gave our passports and boarding passes to the lady at the gate, she checked our passports and boarding passes and then told us to go sit down that she will come to us. We set there in the waiting area but she never came to us. Around 00:55 the boarding started and then we went in the queue but when we reached the counter I said to her, “you still have our passports and boarding passes “ she told me that I have to wait 5 minutes mind you I was carrying my 4 year old daughter who happened to be sleeping and 18 kilos heavy and I was also carrying my handbag maybe about 2.5 kg heavy. When more than 5 minutes were over I asked her why we needed to wait she said she will explain to me in a few minutes. Only to be told at the last minute when the boarding was complete that we are not allowed to fly because my child has a German passport with to pages and South Africa does not allow this. We have been flying with the same passport since our child was born we were even in cape-town last year in September and we never experienced any of this problem. We flew maybe 15 times with the same passport without any troubles. They did not help me at all when I asked them what should I do now they replied to me that they do not know maybe I should go to customer services, mind you this was around 01:am and I had to walk long distances in this airport with my child sleeping. The customer service did not help me at all they told me to call the South African embassy in Turkey in the morning which was not helpful anyway. The hotel in the airport denied me entry even though I was willing to pay that 300 euros for 6 hours just so my child could sleep a little bit. I was so humiliated, my heart was shattered, I sobbed the whole time and looking at my child asking me constantly what was wrong with me and why I was sad made me so mad. I was so lost, everything looked blurred, and in Istanbul airport you can only use free WiFi for 1 hour and later after that hour you have to pay for it so I was unable to contact my husband for 3 hours to let him know that they denied us boarding.

In the morning around 08:00 I went to Turkish airline to see if they have a solution for us, because I just wanted us to go back to luxembourg and sort out the passport. They told me that my whole 2000 euro is burned because it showed that it was a no show at the gate to cape town and it was my fault and not the airlines fault.

After 5 hours of back and forth they finally gave us boarding passes to fly back to luxembourg but they didn't tell me that the flight to luxembourg was our left leg of the return flight from cape-town. I want to know here, was it not the airline responsibility to check everything in luxembourg? Why is our 2000 euros ticket is no longer valid? We had all necessary documents, baby birth certificate,letter of consent and my husband's passport copy.

What should we do now, should we go to our lawyer to see if we can get some money back?

PS. I am Namibian with a Namibian passport I live in Germany with a permanent residency.