At least five people were killed and dozens of others injured following forest fires which ravaged several villages in southeastern Turkey, the Minister of Health announced on Friday.
‘There are five dead and 44 injured, including ten seriously’, in a rural area located between the cities of Diyarbakir and Mardin, close to the Syrian border, wrote Fahrettin Koca on the social network X. The opposition party The pro-Kurdish DEM, which dominates this region, reported seven deaths and 44 injured on Friday.
Images broadcast overnight on social networks showed a gigantic fire illuminating the red sky as well as large clouds of smoke. Seven emergency teams and thirty-five ambulances were dispatched to the scene, Koca said.
The vegetation fire broke out late Thursday evening due to stubble burning in an area located about thirty kilometers south of Diyarbakir, said Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.
The flames spread quickly under the influence of the wind, affecting five villages. ‘Unfortunately, three residents of Diyarbakir province and two of Mardin province lost their lives,’ Mr. Yerlikaya reported on X. According to Mr. Yerlikaya and images broadcast by the official Turkish news agency Anadolu, the fire was ‘completely contained’.
A judicial investigation has been opened, Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunç announced Friday morning.
Air assets requested
During the night, the pro-Kurdish DEM party, the third force in parliament, urged the authorities to deploy air assets, as they did quickly in recent days after fires broke out in the west of the country.
‘So far, ground intervention has been insufficient. The authorities must intervene more widely and with aerial means without wasting time,’ the party called in a press release during the night.
Nearly 13,000 hectares were destroyed by fires in Turkey in 2024, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis).
/ATS
