Street cleaning vehicle kills boy in southern Turkey

MERSİN

DHA photos

A street cleaning vehicle has swept up and killed a 6-year-old boy in southern Turkey, Doğan News Agency reported on July 10.

The boy, identified as İsa Çağlı, grabbed the back of the cleaning vehicle operated by the Akdeniz Municipality when it entered a street in the Akdeniz neighborhood of Mersin province on July 9.


The dangerous game Çağlı and other children were playing by dangling from the moving vehicle ended in terror when Çağlı’s hands slipped, causing him to fall in front of the vacuum machine towed by the vehicle.

The boy died after he was hit repeatedly by the sweeper and then sucked inside the garbage compartment of the vehicle, the report said.

Locals said they had notified the driver, identified as İbrahim Özer, the boy was missing in the neighborhood. Worried about the locals’ reactions, the driver said he decided to go back to the municipality’s maintenance center, where he found the boy’s body in the vehicle and called the police.


“Kids were dangling from the sweeper despite all my warnings. I did not hear him [as he was] vacuumed into the machine due to the noise,” the driver said in his testimony after he surrendered.

Çağlı was buried on July 10 and police have launched an investigation into the incident.