Death toll in HDP Diyarbakır rally rises to three

DİYARBAKIR

AFP Photo

The death toll in the twin bombings at a Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) rally in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakır has risen to three, with 17-year-old Civan Arslan succumbing to his injuries while in a hospital on June 8, three days after the bombing, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported. 

Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor Ramazan Solmaz said in a written statement that the death toll of the explosions at the June 5 HDP rally in Diyarbakır had risen to three on June 8. 

Arslan, who was being treated in the intensive care unit of the Dicle University Medical Faculty, succumbed to his injuries in the afternoon of June 8 a day after more than 48 million voters went to the polls to elect the new parliament consisting of 550 members. 

The statement said the investigation launched by the Diyarbakır prosecutor’s office was continuing. 

Two people, 34-year-old Şeyhmuz Kaçan and 47-year-old Necati Kurul, were killed and over 100 were injured when two bombs exploded ahead of the Kurdish problem-focused HDP rally in Diyarbakır, which was intended to be the biggest rally of the HDP’s election campaign but was cancelled after the incident. 

In the June 7 election, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) received almost 41 percent of the votes, while the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) got more than 25 percent and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) received more than 16 percent. 

The key party in the elections, the HDP, on the other hand, crossed the 10 percent election threshold by getting around 13 percent of the votes, thus decreasing the potential number of AKP lawmakers considerably.

With this result, the AKP received fewer than 276 seats - the bare minimum to keep its parliamentary majority - and thus the new government is expected to be formed with a coalition.

The explosion in Diyarbakır was the second bombing incident targeted at the HDP.

On May 18, bombs exploded at two local HDP headquarters in Adana and Mersin. Hidden in a cargo parcel and a gift-wrapped flower pot, the two bombs injured four people and caused damage to the building.

More casualties were possibly avoided, as party officials in Mersin had suspected the pot had a hidden wiretapping device before deciding to remove it from the room and put it on a terrace. In Adana, on the other hand, the bomb exploded in the filing cabinet of the party’s provincial head, injuring him and two others.

A suspect of the twin bombings at the HDP branches had been previously detained in 2007 for his links to Turkey’s outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), the Turkish Interior Ministry said in a written statement on May 21.