Engagement party ends in bloodbath
Eight men suspected of shooting 44 people during an engagement ceremony have been taken into custody, accused of killing the betrothed couple whose wedding they opposed – along with relatives and friends in a 15-minute rampage.
Two girls survived by concealing themselves beneath the bodies of their slain friends during the shootings in Turkey’s impoverished rural southeast, where tribal ties and rivalries can eclipse the power of the state. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the attack was “the result of a feud between two families”. Security forces backed by armoured vehicles set up checkpoints on roads leading to this village where the killings took place late on Monday.
Authorities also cut telephone communication with the hamlet. Turkey’s Anatolia news agency said the masked attackers had wanted the young woman, Sevgi Celebi, to marry one of their own friends or relatives, but that her family would not allow it.
It quoted unnamed villagers as saying there was a dispute between the family of the attackers and that of the would-be groom, and Celebi’s family had resisted pressure to cancel the marriage plans.
“No customs and mores can be used as an excuse for this massacre,” Erdogan said. Among the dead, he said, were six children, 17 women and 21 men.
He said some of the suspected gunmen had the same family name as the victims. “The people were killed at a happy event, during a ceremony, while praying,” Erdogan said in his weekly address to ruling party members of parliament. “That they pointed guns and massacred children, defenceless people, is atrocious.”
Reports said the gunmen opened fire as men and women prayed in separate rooms, in line with tradition in parts of Turkey. One teenage girl said six members of her family died. “I heard the shooting and I hid in the barn because I was afraid. I was really afraid,” the girl said on television footage released by Turkey’s Dogan news agency.
