44 killed in attack in Turkey; 8 gunmen arrested

[May 05, 2009]  BILGE, Turkey (AP) -- Turkish security forces on Tuesday detained eight gunmen suspected of fatally shooting 44 people, many of whom were praying, at an engagement ceremony in the rural southeast of the country.

Masked assailants with automatic weapons attacked the celebration Monday night in the village of Bilge, near the city of Mardin, in the deadly outcome of a family feud, the government said. Vendettas occasionally simmer among families in the region, where tribal ties and rivalries can eclipse the power of the state.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said "the result of a feud between two families" had led to the deaths of six children, 17 women and 21 men. He said some suspects had the same family name as the victims.

"The people were killed at a happy event, during a ceremony, while praying," Erdogan said in his weekly address to ruling party lawmakers in parliament. "The fact that they pointed guns and massacred children, defenseless people, is atrocious."

Reports said the gunmen opened fire as men and women prayed in separate rooms in line with tradition in parts of Turkey.

The dead included the engaged couple, Sevgi Celebi and her fiance Habib Ari, as well as his mother, sister and the Islamic cleric who was presiding over the ceremony.

Six other people, including Celebi's father, were wounded in the 15-minute attack. Two girls survived after the bodies of slain friends fell on top of them.

One teenage girl said she lost six members of her family. "I heard the shooting and I hid in the barn because I was afraid. I was really afraid," the girl said on television footage released by Turkey's Dogan news agency.

On Tuesday morning, four large earth-movers were seen digging graves for victims in the village cemetery. Residents carried gravestones and two dozen seated women wept beside a tree, slapping their legs in grief.

Security forces backed by armored vehicles set up checkpoints on roads leading to the village. Authorities also cut telephone communication with Bilge.

Interior Minister Besir Atalay said eight suspects were in custody.

"They were caught with their weapons," he said. "The first indications are that it was the result of disputes, of animosity among relatives, within a family in the village."

Turkish media initially described the gathering as "dugun," a term for a wedding celebration. However, authorities and media outlets later used the term "nisan," which refers to an engagement ceremony.

Anatolia news agency said the attackers had wanted Sevgi Celebi to marry one among their own group of friends or relatives but that her family would not allow it.

It cited unnamed villagers as saying there was a dispute between the attackers' family and the family of the would-be groom, and that Celebi's family had resisted pressure to cancel the marriage plans.

The attack focused attention on a feudal-style system that prevails in some impoverished parts of Turkey, where tribal lords and clansmen sometimes incite violence to safeguard the clans' honor.

"No customs and mores can be used as an excuse for this massacre," Erdogan said. "This is the painful price we are paying for such customs and mores."

Opposition lawmaker Canan Aritman urged the government to take steps toward eradicating the tribal system, though she did not specify how that should be done.

"It is something that doesn't exist even in the most primitive societies," said Aritman, member of a parliamentary panel investigating so-called "honor killings" within traditional families.

Mehmet Besir Ayanoglu, the mayor of Mardin, told Channel 24 that he spoke to two survivors, both girls, who said at least two masked men stormed a house where the ceremony took place.

"They raided the house, we were in two rooms, they opened fire on everyone, they were wearing masks," Ayanoglu quoted the girls as saying. The girls said they lay underneath the bodies of friends until the attack was over.

Seyhmus Balik, whose house is one kilometer (half a mile) from the village, told AP Television that he heard gunshots. After a short lull, he heard another round of gunshots, leading him to believe that the gunmen were firing on the injured.

NTV television, citing deputy Gov. Ferhat Ozen, had earlier said the motive for the attack could be a feud between rival groups of pro-government village guards, who fight alongside Turkish troops against Kurdish rebels. Like many other villages in the region, Bilge has a number of guards, and weapons are abundant in the region.

Balik said most village guards had left Bilge at the time of the attack to assist Turkish troops in an operation against Kurdish rebels in a nearby region.

The conflict between government forces and Kurdish guerrillas, whose strongholds are in the southeast as well as northern Iraq, has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984.

[Associated Press; By IBRAHIM USTA]

Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser contributed to this report from Ankara, Turkey.

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