South African tourists have told of being caught up in the terror of the suicide attacks that killed dozens and wounded more than 140 at Istanbul’s busy Ataturk Airport.
Turkish officials blamed Tuesday's massacre at the international terminal on three suspected Islamic State (IS) group militants.
Turkish Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, said 36 people died as well as the three suicide bombers.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 147 were wounded.
A senior government official said the death toll could climb much higher. The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the figure was expected to rise to close to 50.
South African Judy Favish, who spent two days in Istanbul as a stopover on her way home from Dublin, had just checked in when she heard an explosion followed by gunfire and a loud bang. She says she hid under the counter for some time.
Favish, believed to be a senior University of Cape Town accademic, said passengers were ushered to a cafeteria at the basement level where they were kept for more than an hour before being allowed outside.
South African tourists, Paul and Susie Roos of Cape Town, were also at the airport to fly home at the time of the explosions.
“We came up from the arrivals to the departures, up the escalator when we heard these shots going off,” Paul Roos said. “There was this guy going roaming around, he was dressed in black and he had a handgun.”
Hundreds of frightened passengers streamed out of the airport, fleeing the latest of several bombings to strike Turkey recently. Hevin Zini, 12, had just arrived from Duesseldorf, Germany, with her family and was in tears.
“There was blood on the ground,” she said. “Everything was blown up to bits... if we had arrived two minutes earlier, it could have been us.”
Yildirim said all initial indications suggested the IS group was behind the attacks.
“The findings of our security forces point at the Daesh organisation as the perpetrators of this terror attack,” he said, using the Arabic name for IS. “Even though the indications suggest Daesh, our investigations are continuing.”
Turkey shares long, porous borders with Syria and Iraq, war-torn countries where IS controls large pockets of territory. Authorities have blamed IS for several major bombings over the past year, including on the capital, Ankara, and attacks on tourists in Istanbul.
Turkey has stepped up controls at airports and land borders and deported thousands of foreign fighters, but has struggled to tackle the threat of IS militants while also conducting vast security operations against Kurdish rebels, who have also been blamed for recent deadly attacks.
The devastation at Istanbul’s airport follows the March attack on Brussels Airport, where two suicide bombings ripped through check-in counters, killing 16 people.
The IS group claimed responsibility for that attack, as well as a subsequent explosion at a Brussels subway station that killed 16 more people.
Yildirim said air traffic at Ataturk Airport, which was suspended after the attack, had resumed early on Wednesday, as had flights to and from the US.
Yildirim said the attackers arrived at the airport in a taxi and blew themselves up after opening fire. Asked whether a fourth attacker might have escaped, he said authorities had no such assessment, but were considering every possibility.
Another Turkish official said two of the attackers detonated explosives at the entrance of the international arrivals terminal after police fired at them, while the third blew himself up in the parking lot.
The prime minister called for national unity and “global co-operation” in combating terrorism.
“This (attack) has shown once again that terrorism is a global threat,” Yildirim said.
“This is a heinous planned attack that targeted innocent people.”
He suggested the attack was linked to what he said was Turkey’s success against Kurdish rebels, as well as steps Ankara took on Monday toward mending strained ties with Israel and Russia.
“It is meaningful that this heinous attack came at a time when we have become successful in the fight against separatist terrorism… and at a time when we started a process of normalising ties with our neighbours,” Yildirim said.
He said there was no security lapse at the airport, but added the fact that attackers were carrying weapons “increased the severity” of the attack. The victims included some foreigners, he said, adding that many of the wounded had minor injuries, but others were more badly hurt.
The independent DHA news agency said the wounded, among them police officers, were transferred to Bakirkoy State Hospital.
Turkey is beset by an array of security threats, including from ultra-left radicals, Kurdish rebels demanding greater autonomy in the restive south-east, and IS militants.
On January 12, an attack that Turkish authorities blamed on IS claimed the lives of a dozen German tourists.
On March 19, a suicide bombing rocked Istanbul’s main pedestrian street, killing five people, including the bomber, whom the authorities identified as a Turkish national linked to IS.
Last October, twin suicide bombings hit a peace rally outside Ankara’s train station, killing 102 people. There was no claim of responsibility, but Turkish authorities blamed the attack on a local cell of IS.
Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport was the 11th busiest airport in the world last year, with 61.8 million passengers, according to Airports Council International. It is also one of the fastest-growing airports in the world.
AP