The office of a local governor in Turkey stated that more than 50 people were killed on Saturday, August 20 when a suspected suicide bomber detonated his explosives among people who have a good time on the street at a marriage ceremony in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep. While reacting to the occurrence, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said it was probably the Islamic State militants who carried out the late-night attack, the deadliest bombing in Turkey in 2016. The local governor’s office issued a statement informing that no fewer than 50 people lost their lives in the suicide attack, while several people sustained various degrees of injury and were currently being treated in hospitals around the area. The statement reads: “The celebrations were coming to an end and there was a big explosion among people dancing,” said 25-year-old Veli Can. “There were blood and body parts everywhere.” According to statement from security sources, it said: “Blood stains and burns marked the walls of the narrow lane where the wedding party was attacked while women in white and checkered scarves cried sitting cross-legged and waiting outside the morgue for word on missing relatives.
“At least 12 people were buried on Sunday, August 21 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.” BBC learnt from President Rdogan that the suicide attack, which killed 51 people in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, was carried out by a 12 to 14-year-old. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, issued a statement, explaining the marriage ceremony was for one of its members, and women and children had been among those that died. Reuters gathered from Mahmut Togrul, an HDP legislator from Gaziantep, around 40 km north of the border with Syria that the wedding was that of a Kurd. The Daesh militant group has been criticised for suicide bombings on Kurdish assemblies in recent times as militants try to cause tribal war. “It was carried out like an atrocity,” witness Ibrahim Ozdemir stated, adding that “we want to end these massacres.We are in pain, especially the women and children.” Turkey is much in the heat of tension after an attempted military coup on Friday, July 15 which the nation criticised a U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen of instigating. On the other hand, Gulen said he had no hand in the military coup. On Sunday, July 3, the worst suicide bombing was witnessed in Iraq, a country which is not too far from Turkey, when no fewer than 250 were killed in the attack.
