Two women shot dead on highway in southern Turkey

ADANA

DHA Photo

Two women have been shot dead on a highway in the southern province of Adana, as Turkey continues to debate the apparently increasing number of brutal murders committed by men.

A truck driver noticed the bodies of the two women in a ditch on the Tarsus-Adana-Gaziantep highway on March 16, Doğan News Agency reported.

One of the women was shot in her head, while the other was shot in her chest and leg, both by pistols, according to police who inspected the scene.

The two women, whose bodies were transferred to Adana Forensics Morgue, are yet to be identified.

A criminal investigation has been opened into the murders.

The incident is the latest in a recent series of murders of women in Turkey, an issue that returned to national prominence after the brutal killing of 20-year-old student Özgecan Aslan last month. Aslan’s burned body was discovered on Feb. 13 in a riverbed in the province of Mersin, after being killed in a private bus after an attempted rape in Tarsus, between Mersin and Adana, on the southern coast of Turkey.

Gülsüm Kav, from the “We Will Stop Women Murders” platform, recently said in an interview with the Hürriyet Daily News that Turkey needs “unequivocal political and administrative approaches” to stop women murders. Kav criticized the government for not only failing to endorse such an unambiguous stance, but on the contrary even acquitting the killers through its rhetoric.