Turkey ‘drowning in grief’ after terror attack

Emergency medical crews evacuated the wounded to local hospitals in Suruc. Authorities said that at least 30 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a suicide bomb blast in the town near the Syrian border [Xinhua]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned an attack which killed at least 30 at a cultural center in Suruc, a city located south east of the capital Ankara along the border with Syria.

“We are drowning in grief,” he said about the dead and wounded.

Turkish media said that an apparent female suicide bomber infiltrated a group of demonstrators who were peacefully calling on help to rebuild the Syrian town of Kobani (Ain Al Arab) which was earlier this year liberated from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Police authorities said that most of the dead were young volunteers who had planned on traveling to Kobani – 10 kilometers south of Suruc – to assist in rehabilitating the war-ravaged town.

More than 100 people were wounded in the attack, medical sources told local media.

“Terror doesn’t have a nation, race or homeland. That is why we have been consistent in underlining the need for a global effort to fight terror,” Erdogan, who is currently in northern Cyprus, said in a statement carried by local media.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but police sources in Suruc said that the use of a suicide bomber indicates that (ISIL) may have been involved.

Source: Agencies