Gaziantep mourners slam Turkish govt. for failure to protect citizens
A funeral procession for victims of a bomb attack in Turkey’s Gaziantep has turned into an anti-government demonstration, with participants slamming the Turkish government for a failure to protect security of citizens.
Hundreds of angry mourners chanting “Murderer Erdogan (the Turkish president)” gathered for the funeral of 12 of the victims of the bombing that killed over 50 people in a wedding ceremony in Gaziantep late on Saturday.
The terrorist attack was carried out when the assailant detonated explosives among the crowd. The huge explosion also inflicted injuries on more than 90 people, including the bride and groom.
"The explosion was the result of a … bomber aged between 12 and 14 who either detonated (the bomb) or others detonated it," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a press conference in Istanbul on Sunday, adding that 69 of the wounded remained in hospital.
"Wherever this terror comes from, it doesn't change it for us. As a nation, we will use our full strength, united, shoulder-to-shoulder, to fight against terror like we did on July 15," the Turkish president stated, referring to the role of people who helped end the mid-July abortive coup.
Erdogan says the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group is the “likely perpetrator” of the wedding assault.
According to security sources, funerals for other victims would have to wait for the results of DNA tests to identify those victims.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim strongly condemned the attack, saying “our grief is great, but be sure our unity and togetherness will defeat all these diabolic attacks.”
Turkey has suffered a series of attacks by Daesh and Kurdish militants over the past year. One of the deadliest assaults was a gun and bomb attack at Istanbul's Ataturk airport, which claimed the lives of over 40 people and injured over 20 more.
Bombings increased especially after July 2015, when Ankara launched a campaign against militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the southeastern border areas. The Turkish military has also been conducting offensives against the positions of the group in northern Iraq.
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