Three children died and another was seriously injured after a terrible fire broke out early this morning in a house in the Pendik district, on the outskirts of Istanbul’s Asian side, officials said. Neighbours in the area told of desperate attempts to save children from the fire.
The fire broke out at around 02:15 local time (00:15 CET) in a house on the ground floor of a humble two-storey building on Umman Street, in the Fevzi Çakmak neighbourhood. After neighbours alerted the emergency services of the fire, the cause of which is still unknown, teams of firefighters, police and medical services rushed to the scene.
Residents managed to rescue four children before firefighters were able to extinguish the flames for good, Turkish daily Hürriyet reported in the last few hours. The minors, aged two, five, nine and eleven, were taken to nearby hospitals; but Özden Sepetci (2), Cennet Çelikkol (9) and Zülfikar Sepetci (5) died despite the efforts of medical teams to save their lives, while Muhammet Ali Çelikkol, 11, remains in a serious condition.
Turkish police have opened an investigation to determine the origin of the fire, but according to initial reports, the mother – 28-year-old Selvi Sepetci – had left the children alone while she took another daughter, Ela Nur (a few months old), to hospital. The woman was temporarily detained by the police to give a statement at the police station, and later released.
Neighbours’ desperate attempts to save the children’s lives
Several neighbours told the media about the desperate attempts to save the children as smoke engulfed the building: “When I came down the stairs (of the building), smoke was coming out of the door and the chimney. I kicked the door and tried to get in when I opened it, but it was impossible. There was a terrible amount of smoke inside. I tried to help, but I could not. We broke the window bars from the outside, someone came in and was able to get the children out” said Şükran Yeniyayla, who added that when she phoned the children’s mother to tell her what was happening, she said “Please, I beg you, save my children“.
Bayram Yoldaş, another resident of the neighbourhood, explained that he smelt a burning smell in his house, and as he went to look he heard from outside a relative shouting that the building was on fire on the ground floor: “I immediately told my brother to call an ambulance and we went downstairs. The fire hit us in the face as we entered the house (which was on fire). I found a light and we went inside, but I couldn’t find the children. We poured water on the fire, broke the windows, and the smoke cleared; then I saw the four children on the floor: three face down and one face up. One of them was breathing but foaming at the mouth, and I handed him over to the paramedics immediately”.
Other witnesses to the horrific fire confirmed that one of the children was still breathing when they managed to get him out of the house, and that firefighters gave him artificial respiration to try to keep him alive. The mother arrived after the incident, and when asked by police where she was, she replied: “I took my daughter to the hospital”. It is unknown how long the children were left alone and unattended inside the house. According to various sources, the father is also in custody; the family had reportedly moved to this Istanbul neighbourhood only two months ago, and made their living mainly by collecting cardboard.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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