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| Europe |
| ŽBlood feudŽ massacre at Turkish wedding kills 44 |
| 2009-05-06 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] Masked gunmen stormed a wedding party in Turkey's Kurdish region hurling grenades and firing machine guns in an attack that left 44 people dead -- half of them women and children, authorities said Tuesday. Eight people have been arrested over what Interior Minister Besir Atalay said was a blood feud between two families. Atalay said six children and 16 women were among the 44 dead. Three other villagers were wounded. Four masked men entered the village square in Bilge from different directions late Monday, just after a Muslim preacher had completed the wedding ceremony, and started throwing hand grenades, witnesses told AFP. They then opened fire at the crowd and stormed into several houses, continuing to shoot, they said. One 19-year-old woman said the attackers herded women and children into a room in one house and sprayed them with bullets, according to a witness account relayed by a local official. The assailants escaped in the dark as a sandstorm cut visibility in the area, which is near the Syrian border. Not terrorism The interior minister said the massacre was not linked to terrorism -- a reference to separatist Kurdish rebels active in the region -- and appeared to have been triggered by a blood feud between villagers. "An initial assessment suggests that the attack was triggered by enmity and dispute between families. We are still working on the case so I do not want to speak in definite terms," the minister told a news conference in the provincial capital of Mardin before heading to the village. Villagers had also suggested that the shooting was linked to a blood feud between rival families. There were 32 households in the village and all inhabitants belonged to the same clan, Anatolia news agency reported. Local rivalry spilling into deadly feuds is not unheard of in southeast Turkey, although it is rare for the death toll to be so high. The scale of the latest attack would be of deep concern to the government, which is attempting to defuse tensions in the southeast born of separatist conflict. Hostilities are triggered by land disputes, unpaid debts, abductions or girls eloping with someone from a rival clan. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Feudin', a-fussin', and a-fightin, Sometimes it gets to be excitin'. Don't like them orn'ry neighbors down by the creek; We'll be plumb outa neighbors next week |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-05-06 16:58 |