Turkey woke up on the first day of Eid al-Fitr – the three-day holiday marking the end of Ramadan – to the tragic news of a fire that broke out overnight in a container in the Kepez district of Antalya, in the south of the country, killing a pregnant mother and her five children, while five other people were injured, in a terrible event for which three people have so far been arrested.
The blaze broke out for unknown reasons in a container where a Syrian family was living in the Gaziler neighbourhood of the Kepez district, at around 1.30 a.m., according to the Turkish daily Hürriyet. After being alerted, teams of firefighters, gendarmerie and health services rushed to the scene, where after the flames were extinguished, they found the lifeless bodies of Leyle Elali (27), Muna Ahmed (9), Fatma Ahmed (8), Hayat Ahmed (7), Iman Ahmed (5) and Mahmud Ahmed (4). All were the children of the deceased woman, Leyle Elali, who is also known to be seven months pregnant.
The lifeless bodies were taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Antalya, while teams on the ground continue to investigate the incident. Antalya Governor Hulusi Şahin, who travelled to the scene to follow the preliminary investigation into the tragedy in person, told reporters that he woke up to the tragic news on the first day of the Feast of Ramadan (Eid al-Fitr, or Ramazan Bayramı, in Turkish) and noted that the fire broke out in containers housing people working in Kepez’s greenhouses.
Şahin said that in addition to the fatalities, five people were injured and are being treated in three different hospitals in the province. “One of the injured is in intensive care and has life-threatening injuries, while the others are in good condition. Three people have been arrested. The investigation is continuing,” he said.
An unextinguished barbecue may have triggered the tragedy
“We are investigating the cause, but there is a cooker outside and a barbecue was being held. It looks like they went to sleep without turning it off, but at this stage we can’t say for sure ‘it happened because of this’. Our fire teams are carrying out a detailed investigation,” added the governor, who also confirmed that the prosecutor’s office has launched a judicial enquiry.
Süleyman Kaplan, muhtar (neighbourhood head) of Gaziler, confirmed to the media that the fire broke out in a container where Syrian nationals were staying. “Unfortunately, five children and their mother died. The mother was pregnant. The children’s father was also injured and is in intensive care. They were agricultural workers. They had lit a barbecue the night before and did not put out the fire. That’s all we have heard”, he said.
Turkey was for years the country with the largest number of refugees in the world, mostly from Syria, where some 3.7 million came from. Although hundreds of thousands of them have returned home after the end of the civil war, a significant number still reside in Türkiye, where they are often employed in sectors with low local demand, such as agriculture.
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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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