Four officers killed in landmine attack in Turkey’s southeast

ŞIRNAK – Doğan News Agency

DHA photo

Four police officers have been killed in landmine attack carried out by militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the southeastern province of Şırnak.

The officers (Resul Kayaoğlu, 29, M.Yayha Mertcan, 24, Savaş Akyol, 22, and Şahin Polat Aydın, 22) were killed in Şırnak’s Silopi district on Aug. 10 after the militants detonated a landmine while the officers were driving a guarded police vehicle to the Başak neighborhood.

All four were injured at the time of the blast. They were taken to the Silopi Public Hospital, but they could not be saved.

The attack came less than a week after Silopi’s Başak neighborhood was struck by clashes between the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) and security forces, which erupted after police officers entered the neighborhood to recover trenches dug by YDG-H members, leaving a police officer and three civilians dead on Aug. 7.

The Silopi Governor’s Office said in a written statement on Aug. 10 that four police officers were killed and another was injured.

“Four police officers were killed and another injured while on duty around 9 a.m. on Aug. 10 after a remote-controlled landmine placed under a road in Silopi by terrorists was detonated,” it said.