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At least 10 people have been killed and more than a dozen wounded after a large explosion rocked Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet district early Wednesday morning.
Ambulances rushed to the scene and police sealed off the immediate area in a major tourist area of Turkey’s most populous city. Witnesses reported hearing a loud blast, the cause of which has not yet been determined. At least nine of the people killed in a suicide bombing in Istanbul's historic tourist district Tuesday were German citizens, a senior Turkish government official said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has claimed the bombing was a suicide attack carried out by a woman of Syrian origin.
An official from a tour company told Reuters that German and Norwegian tourists, who were in the area, are among those injured. In response to the attack the German Foreign Ministry in Istanbul has told its nationals to avoid all tourists sites in the city via Twitter.
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another Istanbul blast site video, initial reports suggest at least 10 dead pic.twitter.com/e7Ox3hfjhR Turkey
— Khalid Khan™ (@khalidkhan787)
January 12, 2016
Istanbul’s governor’s office confirmed in a statement on its website that 10 people had been killed and at least 15 wounded. “Investigations into the cause of the explosion, the type of explosion and perpetrator or perpetrators are underway,” it said.
Some Turkish television stations claim the blasts were the result of a suicide bomb attack. However, that has not been confirmed and Turkish media has since been banned from covering the event.
As usual, the Turkish govt has put a broadcast ban on news from the explosion in Istanbul. And as usual, this will multiply the confusion.
— Mike Giglio (@mike_giglio)
January 12, 2016
One woman who works at antiques store close to the scene of the blast told Reuters: “The explosion was very loud. We shook a lot. We ran out and saw body parts.”
Turkey has been on high alert since October, when two suicide bombs went off in the capital, Ankara, leaving 103 people dead and 246 wounded.
#Sultanahmet, #Istanbul, #Turkey: Civilians trying to rescue people in an overturned car. pic.twitter.com/KfqbuhBye3
— Haidar Sumeri (@IraqiSecurity)
January 12, 2016
The blasts went off during a peaceful protest calling for an end to Turkey’s military operations against the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a Kurdish militant group.
That operation was blamed on the Islamic State group who were also held responsible for two other bloody assaults in the country’s Kurdish-dominated southeast earlier in 2015.
