ISTANBUL
Anadolu Agency does not verify these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
Turkish dailies on Thursday mainly focused on the first anniversary of the country’s deadliest mining disaster, which claimed more than 300 workers’ lives in the western town of Soma last year.
“Wait for us in the heaven,” was VATAN’s headline, a reference to nine-year-old Turkan Yuksel’s letter to her father Ali who lost his life in the disaster.
The newspaper also featured pictures of Turkan leaning on her father’s grave.
VATAN reported that Turkan was only one of 432 orphans created by the Soma catastrophe.
“Soma has been crying for a year,” was CUMHURIYET’s headline, featuring a picture of a little girl in the town’s graveyard.
YENI SAFAK’s headline was “Tears for 301 martyrs,” while STAR and MILLIYET said the community felt “unrelieved pain”.
HABER TURK reported that the pain felt by the miners’ families was still as fresh as the first day. The daily said that some families also protested against Manisa governor Erdogan Bektas while he was talking about government aid to miners’ dependents.
HURRIYET interviewed the spouses of some of the miners who lost their lives in the accident.
The daily quoted one, Nursel Kocabas, who said: “Three-hundred-and-one women sent their husbands to the same workplace; we have been waiting as if they will come back.”
“Three-hundred-and-one people; makes seven buses full of people,” she said, adding: “I could not say goodbye to my husband. I have not slept for a year.”
In other news, HURRIYET said “Probe into 1,000 soldiers,” quoting Turkey’s Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz.
Yilmaz said in an interview that more than a 1,000 people in the Turkish Armed Forces have been reported for allegedly having connection to the ‘parallel state’.
The parallel state refers to the so-called ‘Gulen movement’ allegedly involving U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen and his supporters who are accused of orchestrating a corruption probe, which targeted high-ranking Turkish officials in December 2013.
In sports news, most newspapers covered a 1-1 draw between Fenerbahce and SAI Kayseri Erciyesspor on Wednesday night.
“Fenerbahce hara-kiri in Kadikoy,” was SABAH’s headline on its front page while HABER TURK described the result as a “shock loss”.
Fenerbahce failed to close the gap with league leaders Galatasaray.
With three games remaining, Fenerbahce are in second place on 67 points while Galatasaray have 70 points.
