FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

Dozens Dead After Twin Bomb Blasts Hit Pro-Kurdish Rally in Turkey

At least 86 people were killed when twin explosions hit a rally of hundreds of pro-Kurdish and leftist activists outside Ankara's main train station.
Photo via EPA

At least 86 people were killed when two suspected suicide bombers hit a rally of pro-Kurdish and leftist activists outside Ankara's main train station on Saturday, weeks ahead of an election, in the deadliest 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.

Advertisement

"Like other terror attacks, the one at the Ankara train station targets our unity, togetherness, brotherhood and future," President Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement, calling for "solidarity and determination".

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 10:00am local time as hundreds gathered to march in protest over the 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."

Adnan, 47, a tutor who participated in the march, pointed out the scene of the blast and where he'd been standing roughly 50 meters away. He described a group of people with Union and HDP placards dancing and singing before two explosions a few seconds apart. The blasts sent flames and plumes of smoke into the air, and were so powerful he was almost thrown from his feet. "I was shaken by the blast, it was a horrible noise," he told VICE News.

People scattered in all directions after the explosions, and police vehicles — including trucks equipped with water cannons — moved in and closed off the area. The scene of the blast was calm by dusk, with access roads closed off and a subdued police presence standing guard while trucks carried wrecked vehicles from the area. Teams of forensics investigators clad in overalls examined the wreckage.

Advertisement

There were no claims of responsibility for the attack.

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, where people had gathered carrying HDP and leftist party banners.

— dokuz8 (@dokuz8haber)October 10, 2015

The NATO member state has been in a heightened state of alert since starting a "synchronized war on terror" in July, including airstrikes 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.

The attacks, in the scale of casualties, exceeded events in 2003, when two synagogues, the Istanbul HSBC Bank headquarters and the British consulate were hit with a total loss of 62 lives. Authorities said those attacks bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

Saturday's attacks came as expectation mounted that PKK militants would announce a unilateral ceasefire, effectively restoring a truce that collapsed in July. The government had already dismissed the anticipated move as an election gambit to bolster the HDP, whose success at June elections had helped erode the ruling AK party's majority.

Related: NATO Is Getting Ready to Defend Turkey From Russia

Hours after the bombing, the PKK ordered its fighters to halt operations in Turkey unless they faced attack. It said through the Firat news website it would avoid acts that could hinder a "fair and just election" on November 1.

Advertisement

"We are faced with a very big massacre, a vicious, barbarous attack," HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas told reporters.

An eyewitness told VICE News that police used tear gas as crowd control in aftermath and blocked medical help from arriving.

A photo provided to VICE News by an eyewitness allegedly shows tear gas being used in the aftermath of the bombing Saturday in Ankara.

Footage from the scene posted on Twitter also showed Turkish riot police clubbing people with batons.

Ankara'daki patlaman?n ard?ndan polis, katliam alan?nda gaz bombas? kulland? — Evrensel Gazetesi (@evrenselgzt)October 10, 2015

It appeared that the Turkish government blocked access to Twitter after the attack, and the country's Radio and Television Supreme Council issued a statement saying that all media organizations were banned from covering the bombings.

The Interior Minister said he could not confirm it was a suicide bombing.

An angry crowd booed and threw bottles when the health and interior ministers arrived in a convoy at the scene, and they were quickly driven away.

Some activists saw the hand of the state in all three attacks on Kurdish interests, accusing Erdogan and the AK Party of seeking to stir up nationalist sentiment, a charge Turkey's leaders have vehemently rejected.

"Suruc, Diyarbakir and now Ankara, all works of murderer Erdogan. We will tear down that palace," said a 21-year-old university student, Tarik, who had been less than 50 meters from one of Saturday's blasts.

Related: Turkish Airstrikes in Iraq Said to Kill at Least 55 Kurdish Militants

Advertisement

Video from the scene in the aftermath of the bombing showed debris scattered everywhere, dazed people calling for medical help, and several bodies lying on the ground.

Additional footage showed a taxi cab being used as a makeshift ambulance.

Ankara. — sezer kele? (@seruzer)October 10, 2015

Pockets of activists still at the scene chanted "Murderer Erdogan" and "the murderer AKP will give account."

Victims were taken to a number of local hospitals, where family and friends gathered outside waiting for news of their loved ones, many of whom are still missing. Names of the wounded were read out periodically as tearful relatives embraced.

Two members of the HDP's Ankara's executive committee told VICE News that they were waiting for wounded and killed family and friends, describing some of the injuries they'd seen.

"'Most were wounded are from the legs down and some, their torsos were shattered," one said.

Onur, 33, a member of the Ankara chamber of doctors, described organizing the medical response in the immediate aftermath of the blast. "We made two open corridors and then I called all health workers and doctors and they ran there," he recalled. "But there was almost nothing to do by then and nearly 50 people dead there."

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu canceled his next three days of election campaigning and held an emergency meeting with the heads of police and intelligence agencies.

Renewed conflict in the southeast since July's collapse of the two-year-old ceasefire, had raised questions over how Turkey can hold a free and fair election in violence-hit areas but the government has so far said the vote will go ahead.

Advertisement

Violence between the state and the PKK has escalated in recent months, with Ankara launching air strikes on militant camps in response to what it said were rising attacks on the security forces in the predominantly Kurdish southeast. Hundreds have since died.

Turkey's problems have been compounded over the last week by Russia's launching of air strikes in neighboring Syria that could further swell a refugee population of over two million on Turkish soil. Turkey has protested to Moscow over incursions into its airspace by Russian warplanes.

Those involved in Saturday's march tended the wounded lying on the ground, as hundreds of stunned people wandered around the streets. Some rushed to hospitals, where crowds gathered to donate blood. Bodies lay in two circles around 20 meters apart where the explosions appeared to have taken place.

"This brutal terrorist attack on peaceful demonstrators is also an assault on the democratic process in Turkey which I vehemently condemn," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.

Related: Survivors of Fatal Shipwreck Accuse Turkey of Illegally Deporting Them Back to Syria and Iraq

The attacks come three weeks ahead of an election at which the AKP is trying to claw back its majority, and at a time of multiple security threats, not only in the southeast but also from Islamic State militants in neighboring Syria and home-grown leftist militants.

Advertisement

In June polls, the AKP lost the overall majority it had held since 2002, partly because of the electoral success of the HDP, which party founder Erdogan accuses of links to the PKK. The HDP denies the accusation.

Designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK launched a separatist insurgency in 1984 in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.

It has since reduced its demands to greater rights for the Kurdish minority; but Ankara fears a link-up between Kurdish militants in Turkey and Kurdish groups in Iraq and Syria that could lead to demands for a separate Kurdish state.

The state launched peace talks with the PKK's jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan in 2012 and the latest in a series of ceasefires had been holding until the violence flared again in July.

Follow VICE News on Twitter: @vicenews