Bombing at wedding party in southern Turkey kills 51
At least 50 people were killed on Saturday when a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives among people dancing on the street at a wedding party in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, the local governor’s office said.
Celebrations were coming to an end and some families had already left when the blast tore through partygoers, and women and children were among those who died, witnesses said.
Blood stains and burns marked the walls of the narrow lane where the wedding party was attacked. Women in white and checkered scarves cried, sitting crosslegged and waiting outside the morgue for word on the missing relatives.
The local governor’s office said in a statement 50 people were killed in the bombing, and more wounded were still being treated in hospitals around the province.
Suicide vest found
A prosecutor’s office said they had found a destroyed suicide vest at the blast site.
The bride and groom survived the attack, though the groom was wounded, a local official said.
At least 12 people were buried on Sunday, but other funerals would have to wait because many of the victims were blown to pieces and DNA forensics tests would be needed to identify them, security sources said.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, said in a statement that the wedding was for one of its members, and women and children had been among those killed.
Mahmut Togrul, an HDP lawmaker from Gaziantep, around 40 km (25 miles) north of the border with Syria, told Reuters it was a Kurdish wedding.
“It was carried out like an atrocity,” witness Ibrahim Ozdemir said. “We want to end these massacres. We are in pain, especially the women and children.”
Erdogan issues statement
President Tayyip Erdogan said it was likely that Islamic State (IS) militants carried out the late-night attack, the deadliest bombing this year in Turkey which faces threats from militants at home and across the border with Syria.
He issued a statement denouncing the “heinous” bombing, saying that IS was “the most likely perpetrator of the Gaziantep attack.”
Mr. Erdogan said there was “absolutely no difference” between IS, Kurdish rebels and Gulen’s movement, calling them terrorist groups.
“These bloodthirsty organisations and the powers behind them have neither the will nor power to silence the calls to prayer, lower the flag, divide our motherland and break up our nation,” he added.
Turkey tense
Turkey is still tense after an attempted coup on July 15 which Ankara blames on U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen. He has denied the charge.
It was the deadliest attack since October last year, when suicide bombers killed 100 people after they attacked a rally of pro-Kurdish and labour activists outside Ankara’s main train station.
Three suspected Islamic State suicide bombers killed 44 people at Istanbul’s main airport in June.
Violence flared again this week in the largely Kurdish southeast. Ten people were killed in bomb attacks, mostly police and soldiers, in an escalation that officials blamed on the PKK, Kurdish separatists militants.
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