IS suicide girl kills 30 across the border in Turkey
AT least 30 people were killed yesterday and 100 injured in a suspected suicide bombing near Turkey’s border with Syria that was blamed on Islamic State.
The attack came as university students prepared to visit the Syrian town of Kobani to help rebuild it after months of war.
They had come from all over Turkey for a press conference in the town of Suruc, across the border from Kobani, and were filmed laughing and chatting excitedly.
Moments later, the happy scene turned to one of horror as a suspected suicide bomber, thought to be an 18-year-old woman, triggered the device, leaving dozens of bodies strewn across the ground.
Fleets of ambulances and medical teams rushed to the scene, described by one witness as ‘from hell’.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on a visit to Cyprus, condemned the attack as an ‘act of terror’, adding: ‘We are drowning in grief … I curse and condemn the perpetrators of this brutality. Terror must be condemned no matter where it comes from.’
The Federation of Socialist Youth Associations, which had arranged the students’ trip, said about 300 members were staying at Suruc’s Amara Culture Centre where the blast struck. IS did not claim responsibility but several officials said the atrocity was a suicide attack and that an 18 year-old woman was the main suspect. It was reported last night that she had survived the explosion.
Alp Altinors, of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish HDP party, said the students had been ‘planning to build parks in Kobani, hand out toys for children and paint school walls’.
In amateur video footage posted online, activists were seen holding the federation’s flags and a banner reading ‘We defended it together, we are building it together’, before the bomb tore through the group. ‘I saw more than 20 bodies,’ one witness said. ‘It was a huge explosion, we all shook.’ Fatma Edemen, 22, said she had been protected by a friend from the full impact of the blast.
She added: ‘First I thought, “I am dying”, but I was OK. I started to run after I saw the bodies.’
Suruc has one of the biggest refugee camps in Turkey, housing about 35,000 Syrians who have fled the four-year conflict at home.
IS has stepped up its recruitment of Turkish fighters in recent months, reports say.
Suruc is a stronghold of support for the People’s Protection Units – Western-backed Kurdish militia that has led the fight against IS along Syria’s northern border.