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Suspected
mine blast injures 17, mostly children, in Turkey
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Kurd Net
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Suspected mine blast injures 17, mostly
children, in Turkey
3.5.2006
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DIYARBAKIR,
Kurdistan-Turkey, May 3, 2006 (AFP) -
Seventeen people, most of them children, were
injured Wednesday in the mainly Kurdish southeast of
Turkey, in a suspected landmine explosion blamed on
armed Kurdish rebels, local security sources said.
In one of the worst cases of violence to hit an
urban centre, the explosion occurred just as a
school bus carrying the children of soldiers was
approaching a military complex, which also includes
lodgings, in the city of Hakkari, the sources said.
Eleven children and a woman were injured in the
blast.
The explosion also badly damaged a military escort
car in front of the school bus, injuring five
soldiers.
Several ambulances and police cars were immediately
rushed to the area while security forces cordoned
off the blast site and did not let anyone through,
witnesses said.
The exact cause of the explosion was not immediately
clear, but officials suspect it was caused by a
landmine planted and set off by remote control by
rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Landmine attacks have become a hallmark of PKK
violence since the group called off a five-year
unilateral ceasefire in June 2004 and the rebels
started to penetrate Turkey from their bases in
northern Iraq.
The rebels have markedly stepped up violence this
year.
At least 20 members of the security forces have been
killed in clashes and landmine attacks blamed on the
rebels, while the PKK has lost at least 53 people.
Kurdish militants -- the PKK and a radical off-shoot
calling itself the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons -- have
also claimed eight bomb attacks in urban centers,
which have killed four people and left 95 injured.
Turkey has amassed thousands of troops along the
border with Iraq for what officials describe as a
large-scale effort to prevent increasing
infiltrations by PKK rebels from Iraq.
More than 37,000 people have been killed since the
PKK -- banned by Turkey, the United States and the
European Union -- picked up arms in 1984 for
self-rule in southeastern Turkey.
AFP
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