Turkey Twin Blasts: 86 dead,
186 injured
#Ankara (Turkey): At least 86 people were killed after twin explosions
hit a rally of pro-Kurdish and leftist activists outside Ankara’s main train
station on Saturday, 10th October 2015, in what Turkish President #Tayyip Erdogan has called a terrorist attack, weeks ahead of an election.
A Reuters reporter saw bodies covered by flags and banners, including those of the pro-Kurdish opposition #Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), with bloodstains and body parts scattered on the road.
“Like other terror attacks, the one at the Ankara train station targets our unity, togetherness, brotherhood and future,” Erdogan said in a statement, calling for “solidarity and determination”.
Witnesses said the two explosions happened seconds apart shortly after 1000AM as hundreds gathered for a planned march to protest over a conflict between Turkish security forces and Kurdish militants in the southeast.
“I heard one big explosion first and tried to cover myself as the windows broke. Right away there was the second one,” said Serdar, 37, who was working at a newspaper stand in the train station. “There was shouting and crying and I stayed under the newspapers for a while. I could smell burnt flesh.”
There were no claims of responsibility for the attack.
But the #NATO member has been in a heightened state of alert since starting a “synchronized war on terror” in July, including air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria and #Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq.
It has also rounded up hundreds of suspected Kurdish and Islamist militants at home.
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