Explosion hits Viransehir in Turkey’s southeast
February 17, 2017
Car bomb kills at least three-year-old child and wounds 15 people in Viransehir, according to local governor.
A three-year old child has been killed and 15 people have been wounded in a car bomb attack in a town in southeastern Turkey, near the border with Syria, according to a provincial governor and hospital sources.
Friday’s explosion occurred near the lodgings of judges and prosecutors in Viransehir in Sanliurfa province, said Governor Gungor Azim Tuna as quoted by Turkey’s state news agency, Anadolu.
The dead child was the son of a court worker, he said, adding that the wounded were taken to hospital but were not believed to have any serious injuries.
Tuna claimed the blast was a “terror attack” caused by a parked vehicle that was loaded with explosives and detonated using a remote control.
No claim of responsibility
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Twitter that no attack would weaken Turkey’s fight against “terror”.
“Our determined and effective fight against terror will continue,” he said.
No group immediately claimed the attack, and Bozdag did not say which organisation the government suspected.
Turkey was hit by a series of attacks in 2016 blamed on Kurdish fighters and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), killing hundreds of people.
This year also had a bloody start, with a New Year’s attack on an elite Istanbul nightclub which left 39 people dead, most of them foreigners. The attack was claimed by ISIL, also known as ISIS.
