Official wounded in PKK attack martyred in hospital

By Adsiz Günebakan

GAZIANTEP, Turkey (AA) - Muhammet Fatih Safiturk, the governor of Mardin's Derik district, was martyred early Friday by wounds sustained in a PKK terrorist attack on his office a day earlier.

Safiturk succumbed to his wounds in the Ersin Arslan State Hospital in the nearby Gaziantep province, said Gaziantep Governor Ali Yerlikaya.

Three people, including Safiturk, were wounded Thursday in a terrorist PKK attack on Safiturk’s office in the southeastern Mardin province.

After the attack, security forces apprehended 20 people in the district, said a security source who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

After treatment at Dicle University Hospital in the Diyarbakir province, Safiturk was later transferred to Gaziantep by helicopter.

The PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and EU – resumed its decades-old armed campaign in July 2015.

Since then, PKK terrorists have martyred nearly 800 members of security forces and claimed the lives of over 310 civilians including women and children while more than 10,000 PKK terrorists have been killed or apprehended in army operations.