At least 50 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded after a suicide bomber targeted a Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep, south of Turkey.
The massacre, blamed on ISIS by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, targeted the wedding guests as they celebrated in the street outside.
According to Reuters, citing a local MP, the bomb struck an area that has a large Kurdish community.
The local MP, identified as Mahmut Togrul, told Reuters that the wedding targeted a couple who had recently moved to Gaziantep from a Kurdish town as a result of violence between Kurdish fighters and Turkish authorities. Togrul says that one of those getting married was also a member of the Kurdish party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Gaziantep is near the Syrian border and previous attacks have also been linked to ISIS. Initial reports indicate the attack may be a ‘revenge attack’ after recent gains by Kurdish forces against ISIS in Syria.
Turkey has witnessed a number of deadly attacks in the past year, including one that killed eight German tourists in Istanbul. Other attacks have also been targeted towards Kurds, most notably in October 2015 when 100 people were killed at a Kurdish peace rally in Ankara.
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