Protesters rally against Turkish president after country’s worst terror attack
Questions remain over who ordered suicide bombers to carry out attack on peace rally in Ankara
Thousands of mourners filled the streets of Ankara on Sunday and vented their anger at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after 97 people were killed in the country’s worst-ever terror attack, while the government raced to identify the two male suicide bombers it blamed for the bloodshed.
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), one of the groups that had organised the rally, said it believed the death toll now stood at 128.
The attacks have raised tensions in Turkey just three weeks before snap elections are due on November 1 and as the military wages an offensive against Islamic State (IS) jihadists and Kurdish militants.
With the country on edge, Erdogan issued a statement condemning the “heinous” bombings and cancelled a planned visit to Turkmenistan but he has yet to speak in public since the attack that shocked the nation.
On Sunday, thousands of demonstrators thronged central Ankara’s Sihhiye Square, close to the blast site by the city’s main train station, to pay tribute to the victims.