Residents of the Turkish border town of Akçakale buried their dead and blamed their government in Ankara for not acting sooner to stop Syrian shelling.
People mourn after they buried the mortar attack victims in Akçakale, Turkey, Thursday, Oct. 4. Turkey fired on Syrian targets for a second day Thursday, but said it has no intention of declaring war, despite tensions after deadly shelling from Syria killed five civilians in a Turkish border town.
Residents in the Turkish border town at the center of rising military tensions between Turkey and Syria blamed their government in Ankara for not acting to forestall a fatal mortar strike that killed five people here yesterday and left 11 wounded.
Early this morning in Akçakale, relatives of the Ozer and Timucin families buried their dead: 8-year-old Zeynep Timucin, her older sisters Aysegul and Fatos, their mother Zeliha, and aunt Gulsen Ozer.
“Why didn’t the government protect us before they died?” asks Ali Sonis, Mrs. Ozer’s brother, at a community center acting as a house of condolence. “The bombing has been going on for a month…. They wait for someone to die, and then they act.”
“The first fault is our government because they chose the side of the rebels,” he adds. “We support AKP [the Turkish ruling party], but after this situation we will think twice to support them or not.”
