On Sunday, an explosion rocked a busy pedestrian area in central Istanbul, killing six people and injuring 53 others in what President Tayyip Erdogan described as a bomb strike that “smells like terrorism.”
Ambulances rushed to the scene on Istiklal Avenue, which had been blocked off by police. The area, in Turkey’s largest city’s Beyoglu district, had been packed as usual during the weekend with shoppers, visitors, and families.
Reuters received video footage of the explosion in the middle of the avenue, which sent debris into the air and left several people lying on the ground.
‘Efforts to defeat Turkey and the Turkish people through terrorism will fail today, as they did yesterday, and will fail again tomorrow,’ Erdogan said at a press conference.
‘Our people can be assured that the perpetrators of the attack will be punished as they deserve,’ he said, adding that preliminary evidence suggested ‘a woman played a role’ in it.
‘It would be incorrect to say that this is without a doubt a terrorist attack, but the initial developments and intelligence from my governor indicate that it smells like terrorism,’ Erdogan said.
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