Massacre in Turkey

[faceless]

Turkish massacre sparked by family feud
A frenzied attack on an engagement party in Turkey which left 44 people dead and stunned the nation was provoked by an inter-family feud.
Damien McElroy,
Foreign Affairs Correspondent
5 May 2009
telegraph.co.uk

Eight gunmen, some who shared a surname with their victims, were arrested by Turkish security forces after they fled the scene of the attack on Monday night in the village of Bilge, in the country's predominantly Kurdish south-east. Villagers and regional officials said that the fury of a spurned suitor, an ancient family feud and even a dispute over the revenues of a trout farm had culminated in the attack.

The dead, who were buried in mass graves yesterday, included 34 members of the same extended family. They had gathered for a prayer ceremony and party hosted by Cemil Celebi, a former village official and powerful figure in the clan-dominated region, who was the father of the bride. But the joy of the occasion turned to terror as the celebration of Sevgi Celebi's bethrothal to Habip Ari was stormed by masked men armed with assault rifles and grenades.

Ahmet Can, a guest at the ceremony, described the attack as an horrific assault on unsuspecting revellers. "You could not believe your eyes, it is unbelievable," he said. An unnamed woman told Turkey's Channel 24 news: "They raided the house. We were in two rooms. They opened fire on everyone. They were wearing masks." She said that she hid underneath the bodies of slain guests until the attack was over. The prospective bride, groom, his mother and sister were killed in volleys of automatic gunfire, along with at least six children. The local mullah and an entire family, including children aged between three and 12, were also killed. There were chaotic scenes at the gates of a hospital in the nearby city of Mardin, where the wounded were carried in by relatives and mothers wailed in grief.

The Turkish parliament met in emergency session and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, condemned the attack as abhorrent. No cultural custom could justify the murder of unwitting people while they prayed, he said. "Pointing guns at children, slaying defenceless and innocent people is inhumane," said Mr Erdogan. "It's beyond words."

Officials said that existing family divisions had also been compounded by the rivalries within two opposing factions of the Village Guard, a regional militia established in the 1990s to contain the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a separatist movement and banned terrorist group. A leading member of one of the rival groups was said to have declared his desire for a relative from his side of the family marry the 19-year-old bride but was rebuffed.

"The attackers wanted the girl to marry one of their own relatives," the villager said. "We learned that there was an argument recently between the family of the assailants and that of the bride."

As survivors vented their fury at the gunmen, the attack looked likely to only fuel the family feud. Sultan Celebi, 75, who lost four children, three daughters-in-laws and one grandchild in the attack, said: "They ruined us all. I want them to get the biggest punishment possible. I wish fire in the houses of those who put fire in my house."

The implication of the Village Guard system will revive controversy over Turkey's decision to arm untrained Kurds to repel terrorist attacks. A 2006 European Union report on Turkey's accession hopes declared that the guards were an "obstacle" to joining the bloc.

----------------------

What a nightmare.