Unidentified gunmen armed with rifles and grendades attacked a wedding party in south-eastern Turkey on Monday, killing at least 44 people, local officials said.
The acting governor of the province of Mardin, Ahmet Ferhat Ozen, told Reuters by telephone the assailants, wearing masks, stormed a building in the village of Sultankoy, about 20km from Mardin, and opened fire on wedding guests.
Television broadcasters said there had been a blood feud in the village in recent years. State-run news agency Anatolian reported the daughter of the village chief, called a muhtar, was being married when the attack occured.
Local media said the families of both the bride and the groom included members of the Village Guard, a heavily-armed state-backed militia set up to combat Kurdish separatist guerrillas in the area.
Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of the EU-candidate country, was briefed by his interior minister on the attack, the state-run Anatolian news agency said.
Feuds
Hospital officials said at least 44 were killed and at least 17 injured. Ozen said the number of dead could rise.
Ambulances rushed the injured to Mardin and local residents were called to the hospital to donate blood.
Local rivalry spilling into deadly feuds are not unheard of in south-east Turkey, although the size of deaths in this one is rare. The scale would also raise the incident to a matter of deep concern for national government, which is attempting to defuse tensions in the south-east born of separatist conflict.
The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet said on its webpage that the attack took place in mid-evening and that four unidentified gunmen had been involved in the attack. Their whereabouts were still unknown.
It was not immediately clear if the incident was linked to the Village Guard or to Kurdish rebels. Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels have been fighting Turkish forces in the southeast since 1984. About 40 000 people have been killed in conflict. Few individual incidents associated with the conflict have produced such a high death toll. – Reuters