Sleep saves village teacher, family from Turkish wedding attack
Güncelleme Tarihi:
MARDIN – The village teacher in Bilge, in the southeastern province of Mardin, may have saved himself and his family from the massacre there late Monday after he fell asleep instead of attending the wedding.
Sadik Akbulut’s wife, Bedia, told Anatolia Agency by phone that her husband, who had worked in the village for the past four years, had fallen asleep ahead of the wedding and she did not want to wake him up.
“We are very close to the villagers. The Celebi family had invited us to the wedding. I didn’t want to wake up my husband so we didn’t go,” she said.
Akbulut said when they heard the gunshots at around 9 p.m., her husband woke up and turned off all the lights. “A while later, the gunshots stopped. When we went out, we learned that the Celebi family had been attacked and there were many dead,” she said.
She said everyone in the village was scared. “We can’t believe what has happened,” she said, adding that some villagers told her they had seen four attackers wearing masks.
“The men of the village have gone to hospitals in Mardin and only the women and children are left in the village. All the women have gathered at one house and are mourning the dead,” Akbulut said.