DIYARBAKIR, Turkey Five children were injured on Monday when a bomb tore through a street in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir, where deadly clashes have followed the collapse of a ceasefire by Kurdish militants.
Advertisement
According to a statement by the Diyarbakır Governor’s Office, the PKK had aimed to hit an armored police vehicle but instead struck a three-story house in the mainly Kurdish district of Bismil, killing 9-year-old Elif Şimşek.
The dead were in addition to 15 PKK militants killed on September 26, the General Staff said.
It added that five guerrilla fighters were taken captive by the Turkish security forces.
In response the group – blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the worldwide community – has launched bloody attacks on security forces. None of them was in serious condition.
In another statement on Monday, the TSK announced that 22 terrorists had been killed by security forces during operations against the PKK in the Beytüşşebap district of Şırnak province.
Since the resumption of the conflict 30 civilians are also reported to have been killed in the Kurdish areas of Turkey.
The PKK, listed by the United States, Turkey and the European Union as a terrorist group, has waged an armed campaign for greater autonomy since 1984, but peace talks that began in 2012 had brought relative peace to the southeast.
Advertisement
Separately, the news agency Dicle said on social media that it and the newspaper Azidiye Welat had been targeted in the operation, and that anti-terrorist police had detained 32 journalists and other employees.
