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In a gruesome massacre, more than 40 people, including many women and children, were killed late Monday when masked assailants attacked a wedding party in southeastern Turkey, the semi-official Anatolian News Agency reported.
The Interior Ministry said police captured eight gunmen along with their weapons after an intense security operation in the region near the city of Mardin. The dead included six children, 16 women and 22 men.
Observing Muslim practice, many of the men had gathered for evening prayers when the attackers opened fire in the village of Bilge, 15 miles from Mardin, a witness told the private NTV television network.
A report from the Haberturk news agency quoted witnesses as saying the attackers herded party-goers into one room and opened fire.
Preliminary investigations pointed to a possible feud between two families in the village, Interior Minister Besir Atalay said before heading for Mardin with Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin.
But Mr. Atalay declined to call the attack a blood feud — a phenomenon in Turkey’s southeast region which usually involves exacting vengeance for the murder of a relative by killing a male member of the murderer’s family. Such feuds have cost many lives in the past.
Over the years, successive Turkish governments have taken legal measures, including stiffer prison terms, for such crimes. The authorities have also sent officials to mediate conflicts in efforts to curb the practice.
The dead included Sevgi Celebi, the bride-to-be, and Habib Ari, her fiancé, along with Mr. Ari’s four-year-old sister, Ruken.
Sadik Akbulut, the teacher at the village school, and his wife Bedia Akbulut survived the attack after Mr. Akbulut overslept and missed the party.
“When we heard gunshots,” Mrs. Akbulut told the Anatolian Agency, “my husband immediately switched off the lights.” .
“People at the village are in deep fear, we cannot believe what we’ve been through,” she said.
Television pictures showed four construction machines digging graves in an open area to prepare for the funerals.
Ali Ozkan, a local official, said the families of the bride and groom had been divided by a blood feud in the past but it had been resolved 20 years ago. Some members of the groom’s family saw the marriage as a way of rebuilding friendly ties with the bride’s relatives, but others “strongly disagreed,” he said.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Ozkan said all the men in Bilge were members of the Village Guards, an official organization set up by the Turkish government in the early 1980s to resist Kurdish separatism.
They are authorized to carry weapons and other military equipment in support of the Turkish Army. Mr. Ozkan said the Village Guard system could “hurt life in the region” if its members took the law into their own hands, making incidents like Monday night’s slaughter “inevitable.”
Village Guards have been accused by their critics of seeking to usurp state authority and of pursuing criminal activities in many areas. |
