A younger lady and her father are amongst at the very least six individuals who have died in a suspected terror assault in Istanbul.
An explosion rocked a busy pedestrian road in central Istanbul on Sunday afternoon, with Turkey’s president calling the incident a “bomb attack” and saying it “smells like terrorism”.
At least 81 have been injured and police say a lady could have been behind the blast.
Among those that died was Yusuf Meydan and his younger daughter Ecrin.
The Turkish minister of household and social companies, Derya Yanik, mentioned: “I curse this treacherous assault that killed a father and his daughter.
“As the state, we stand by the families of our brothers and sisters who lost their lives and with our wounded people with all our means. No evil focus will be able to disrupt our unity and solidarity.”
Earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned these behind terror assaults “will fail today just as they did yesterday and as they will fail again tomorrow”.
“Our people can rest assured that the culprits behind the attack will be punished as they deserve,” he mentioned.
He added that preliminary info advised “a woman played a part” within the assault.
“It would be wrong to say this is undoubtedly a terrorist attack but the initial developments and initial intelligence from my governor is that it smells like terrorism.”
Justice minister Bekir Bozdag mentioned detectives are looking out for a girl seen close to the scene of the blast.
“We were told a woman is seen sitting on one of the benches there for a certain period of time, for more than 40 minutes, then she gets up, and after a minute to two minutes after getting up, an explosion occurs,” he mentioned.
‘I used to be petrified’
Footage taken moments after the explosion exhibits panicked individuals working from the scene.
“When I heard the explosion, I was petrified, people froze, looking at each other. Then people started running away. What else can you do,” restaurant employee Mehmet Akus mentioned.
“My relatives called me, they know I work on Istiklal. I reassured them,” he added.
Five prosecutors have been assigned to research the explosion, state-run Anadolu information company mentioned.
No one has claimed accountability for the assault.
Broadcast ban imposed
Turkey’s RTUK regulator imposed a broadcast ban on protection of the blast round an hour after it occurred. It prevents broadcasters from displaying movies of the second of the blast or its aftermath.
Istiklal Avenue is a pedestrian thoroughfare fashionable with vacationers and locals and is lined with retailers and eating places.
Turkey suffered a number of lethal bombings between 2015 and 2017 by Islamic State and outlawed Kurdish teams.
Source: information.sky.com”