Turkey: Elderly couple confront tanks during coup attempt

By Kemal Karadag and Yasemin Kalyoncuoglu

ANKARA (AA) - A week ago, Rifat, 62, and Mine Ozer, 61, would surely have brushed aside such any suggestion that one day they would resist military tanks advancing on the Presidential Palace during a military coup.

On the night of July 15, the couple did not hesitate a second to risk their lives as three tanks rolled to the Presidential complex on the outskirts of the Turkish capital Ankara.

“My aim was to defend my country. Our duty was to hand over a country in which our kids and grandsons can wake up [safely],”Mine Ozer told Anadolu Agency from her hospital bed.

Rogue elements of the Turkish Armed Forces hit the streets last Friday evening to stage a military coup. But, in the face of the attempted military takeover, civilians swarmed the streets to stand against the coup.

The couple was at home in the Golbasi district, south of Ankara, when their daughter alerted them that a coup was taking place.

“She told me that the police headquarters [of the special forces] was bombed. I saw black smoke rising from the debris,” Mine Ozer recalled.

She did not panic. Rapidly, she prepared food for a long night and stored it in a bag. Before hitting the streets with her husband, she and Rifat performed their ablutions.

Mine and Rifat headed to the headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party in the Cankaya district. That is when they first heard the rumors that the Presidential Palace was under attack.

In their rush to the palace, the couple came across three tanks.

“I came face-to-face with a soldier who was driving a tank. I told him: ‘What are you doing there my dear? Don't commit crime. I am your mother. We love you.’ Later, I heard someone saying: ‘Why don’t you shoot? Hey, why don’t you shoot these dishonest people?’ Then, they began shooting at us,” Mine Ozer said.

A bullet hit her abdominal region and she collapsed in front of the tank.

“Another citizen was crushed by a tank,” she remembered.

“In order to keep one of us alive, I used my body as a shield,” her husband told Anadolu Agency.

And Rifat, 62, was also hit. “A mini public bus took us to a hospital,” he recalled.

He was slightly injured and discharged from the hospital on July 16.

His wife fought for her life and spent two days in intensive care. Doctors also removed shrapnel from her arm and leg.

Mine Ozer said she would go out again to resist any military takeover.

“I voted for [President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan. I love the AK Party. [But] I would have done the same thing if Kemal Kilicdaroglu, [the chairman of the opposition Republican People’s Party], was at the helm of the country,” she said.

At least 246 people, including members of the security forces and civilians, were martyred during the failed putsch, and nearly 1,500 others were wounded in the ensuing protests.

* Tuncay Kayaoglu contributed to this report from Istanbul.