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22nd Aug 2016

Latest Suicide Bombing In Turkey Carried Out By Child As Young As 12

Trine Jensen-Burke

51 people were killed and at least 94 injured when a suicide bomber detonated himself at a wedding reception in Turkey late Saturday evening.

The attack, which was the deadliest so far in 2016, was the latest to rock the key NATO member in an extremely bloody year that has seen strikes blamed on Kurdish and Islamist militants, as well as July’s botched military coup.

What is even more heartbreaking, is that this weekend’s gruesome attack in Gaziantep, near the Syria border, was most likely carried out by a child as young as 12 years old.

While no group has accepted responsibility for the attack yet, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pointing the finger, not surprisingly, at Islamic State group.

The remains of a suicide vest were found at the scene, the chief prosecutor’s office said according to broadcaster CNN-Turk, and it was also revealed that the blast was “the result of a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14 who either detonated (the bomb) or others detonated it”.

Many of the 52 victims were buried yesterday, while 69 of those injured, a large number of those thought to be women and children, remain in hospital.