‘Carried my girlfriend out on my back’

AT LEAST 600 people were thought to have been inside Reina club, one of Istanbul’s best known nightspots, when a gunman shot dead a policeman and civilian at the door, forced his way in and opened fire.

Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said the attacker used a “long-range weapon” to “brutally and savagely” fire on people on Saturday night, apparently referring to some form of assault rifle.

“I didn’t see who was shooting but heard the gunshots and people fled. Police moved in quickly,” Sefa Boydas, a Turkish football player, wrote on Twitter. “My girlfriend was wearing high heels. I lifted her and carried her out on my back,” he said.

Some customers jumped into the waters of the Bosphorus to escape the attack at the club in Ortakoy, a neighbourhood on the city’s European side nestled under one of three bridges crossing the Bosphorus and home to nightclubs, restaurants and art galleries.

“At first we thought some men were fighting with each other,” said a Lebanese woman who gave her name as Hadeel and who was in the club with her husband and a friend. “Then we heard the sound of the gunfire and ducked under the tables. We heard the guy screaming ‘Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest)’, all three of us heard that ... We heard his footsteps crushing the broken glass," she told Reuters. "We got out through the kitchen, there was blood everywhere and bodies."

Sinem Uyanik was inside the club with her husband, who was wounded in the attack. “Before I could understand what was happening, my husband fell on top me,’’ she said outside Istanbul’s Sisli Etfal Hospital. “I had to lift several bodies from on top of me before I could get out. It was frightening.’’ Her husband was not in serious condition despite sustaining three wounds. REUTERS

AP The popular Reina nightclub in Istanbul is shut after the attack.