Turkey launches campaign to help coup attempt victims

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

Demonstrators seen through a hole in a hotel's window near Istanbul's Taksim Square wave Turkish flags on July 24, 2016 during the first cross-party rally to condemn the coup attempt. AFP photo

An official initiative has been launched by Turkey’s Prime Ministry in order to raise funds to help the families of civilians who fell victim to the failed coup attempt on July 15. 

The government marshalled all of its resources to help the victims but there was also an enormous outpouring from Turks who wanted to personally provide assistance, the ministry said in an announcement late July 24 that was also published in the Official Gazette a day later. 

Financial donations to the Solidarity Campaign can be deposited to a number of bank accounts listed in the statement.        

At least 246 people were killed, excluding the coup plotters, and some 2,185 people were wounded as elements from the Turkish military, suspected of having links to U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, attempted to orchestrate a coup to overthrow Turkey’s government on July 15. 

Gülen is accused of a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary, forming what is commonly known as the “parallel state.”