The explosive that exploded on Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue was “left by the individual,” according to the interior ministry.
In Istanbul, Turkey, at least six people have been killed in an explosion. An arrest has been made in connection with a bombing suspect. According to the state-run Anadolu media, Turkey’s interior minister Suleyman Soylu said on Monday that the person is thought to have set the device.
Soylu claimed that the bomb assault was the fault of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He was reported by the news agency AFP as saying, “Based on our findings, the terrorist organisation PKK is accountable.”
The bombing “smells like terrorism,” according to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. Additionally, he and the vice president of the nation, Faut Oktay, claimed that the attack was carried out by a “woman” bomber.
In the incident that occurred on Sunday, an explosion that shook the busy pedestrian street resulted in six fatalities and 81 injuries.
After the explosion, video footage of hundreds of people running away from the scene emerged online. Black smoke had enveloped the area, and police and ambulances had arrived. Visitors, families, and shoppers throng the location as usual.
As others fled the scene after the explosion, parents were seen holding their children in their arms as some people were spotted lying on the ground.
A Turkish government ministry employee and his daughter were among the fatalities, according to later reports from the authorities.According to news agency Reuters, two of the five injured people who were transferred to intensive care in a hospital were in a critical condition.
At a news conference, Erdogan stated that attempts to “defeat Turkey and the Turkish people through terrorism will fail today just as they did yesterday and as they will tomorrow.”
Reuters reported that he assured the people, “The perpetrators will be punished as they deserve.”
Bekir Bozdag, Turkey’s justice minister, was quoted by Anadolu as saying that a woman had sat on a bench in the street for more than 40 minutes before getting up just before the explosion, suggesting that the bomb was either timed to go off or was detonated from a distance.
Condemnations of the act and expressions of sympathy for the victims have flooded in from a wide range of countries, including Ukraine, Britain, Italy, Egypt, and Greece, among others.
The attack’s perpetrator has not yet been identified.
A soccer stadium in Istanbul was the target of twin explosions in December 2016, resulting in up to 38 fatalities and 155 injuries. An offshoot of the PKK, which Turkey, the US, and the European Union (EU) have all labelled as terrorist organisations, has previously claimed responsibility.
