At least 86 people were killed when two suspected suicide bombers struck a rally of pro-Kurdish and labor activists outside Ankara's main train station just weeks before elections, in the worst attack of its kind on Turkish soil.
Bodies covered by flags and banners, including those of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), lay scattered on the road among bloodstains and body parts. The HDP blamed the government which, it said, had blood on its hands.
Footage screened by broadcaster CNN Turk showed a line of young men and women holding hands and dancing, and then flinching as a large explosion flashed behind them, engulfing people carrying HDP and leftist party banners.
President Tayyip Erdogan, who has vowed to root out and crush a Kurdish insurgency since the collapse of a ceasefire and resumption of intense violence in July, called in a statement for "solidarity and determination" to confront the attackers.
"Like other terror attacks, the one at the Ankara train station targets our unity, togetherness, brotherhood and future," he said in a statement.
Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu told a news conference that 86 people had been killed and 186 wounded, 28 of whom were in intensive care. The death toll could rise further.
Witnesses said the two explosions happened seconds apart shortly after 10 a.m. as hundreds, including HDP activists, leftists, labor unions and other civic groups, gathered for a planned march to protest over the deaths of hundreds since conflict resumed between security forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
Source
Posts
No comments:
Write comments