ISTANBUL
Two victims of the Suruc bomb attack in southern Turkey were laid to rest in Istanbul on Wednesday.
Polen Unlu and Hatice Ezgi Sadet, two friends from the city’s Mimar Sinan University, were buried side by side in Umraniye, a neighborhood on Istanbul’s Asian side.
Hundreds of mourners, including lawmakers from the Republican People’s Party and the Peoples’ Democratic Party, attended the burials and separate ceremonies. Unlu’s service was held at Ihlamurkuyu mosque while Sadet’s friends and relatives gathered at a nearby Alevi place of worship of the same name.
The women, aged 20, were both enrolled on the same art history course and were due to return to university together after the summer.
During an emotional speech, Sadet’s father Ali told mourners that his daughter was carrying “notebooks, pens and toys” rather than guns.
In an apparently ambiguous reference, he added: “They feared my daughter.”
Before the service, Ali Sadet told journalists that his daughter had not planned to cross the border into Kobani, as most of the other young victims of the blast had intended. The group was to travel to the devastated town to help with reconstruction.
Her body was carried by van to Cicir cemetery, following by a large crowd, many chanting slogans against Daesh, the extremist group widely believed to be behind Monday’s suspected suicide blast.
At the ceremony, the young women’s body was placed in the ground. Next to her was a grave reserved for her friend, whose body was due to arrive after the mosque service.
Among other victims of the attack in Sanliurfa province, Bahar Nazegul Boyraz was also interred in Istanbul on Wednesday after most of the bodies were handed over by the authorities on Tuesday.
Koray Capoglu was buried in Trabzon on the Black Sea coast in the early hours of Wednesday morning to avoid what his family referred to as “provocation”.
Other victims buried on Wednesday included Nuray Kocan, who was buried in the northwestern province of Bursa, and three others laid to rest in Mus, eastern Turkey.
Busra Mete was buried on Tuesday night.
