MOSCOW, October 10 (RIA Novosti) - Ten more people, including two policemen, have lost their lives in the ongoing unrest in Turkey, NTV reported Friday.
Bingol province police chief Atalay Urker, his deputy and two police officers were shot late Thursday as they inspected offices and stores that had been burned down during protests. Two of the policemen lost their lives in the shooting, while Urker is currently receiving intensive medical care at an Ankara clinic, the Turkish news channel said.
This is the first attack on a provincial police chief in Turkey since 2001. The four suspected attackers were later killed in a shootout with the Gendarmerie.
Four more people were killed in a shootout in the southern province of Gaziantep and at least 20 people were hurt in clashes in the region, the news channel reported.
In the southern city of Mersin, angry crowds attacked police officers. Two policemen and two civilians sustained injuries.
In Diyarbakir, a large city in the country's southeast, protesters robbed two weapon stores, taking more than 100 rifles and an unspecified amount of guns and ammunition.
Since Monday, Turkey has been facing mass protests by the Kurdish population perturbed by Erdogan's noninterference policy toward developments in the Syrian border town of Kobani. According to media reports, more than 30 people have lost their lives in the protests, though no official data on the number of casualties has been released.
For the past three weeks, Islamic State militants have besieged Kobani (Ayn al-Arab), one of the largest towns in the Kurdish region bordering Turkey. The extremist group controls some 60 villages around the city.
More than 400 people have died in clashes between IS and Kurdish fighters in Kobani, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Some 200,000 refugees have crossed into Turkey to flee the IS threat.
