Turkey car bomb death toll rises

21 Aug 2012, 7:49 pm   -   Source: AAP
A car bomb has killed eight people and wounded 50 others in a city in southeast Turkey. (AAP)

A car bomb has killed eight people and wounded 50 others in a city in southeast Turkey. (AAP)

At least nine people, including four children, have died from a car bomb in a southeastern Turkish city, raising the earlier toll.

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At least nine people, including four children, have died from a car bomb in a southeastern Turkish city, raising the earlier toll.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said on Tuesday the toll from what he described as a terrorist attack in the city of Gaziantep had risen from eight after a 12-year-old girl died from her injuries.

The latest number of injured from the blast was also higher at 69, with four people in a critical condition, while most of the others suffered slight injuries caused by shattered glass, Atalay said.

Atalay accused rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) of being behind the powerful blast that went off close to a police station and set fire to several vehicles including a city bus carrying some of the victims.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which came on the second day of the Muslim feast of Aid al-Fitr which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Atalay said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would travel to Gaziantep on Wednesday.

No one has been arrested yet over the attack, he said.

Gaziantep, a main city in the region, has so far been spared the violence wrought by PKK rebels since they began their battle for autonomy in the Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984.

The conflict with the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, has killed about 45,000 people over nearly three decades.

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