As Turkish police increased security at tourist resorts yesterday some Irish tourists have cancelled holidays to the region after the bomb attack that killed an Irish girl and four other people, report Nicholas Birch and Christine Newman.
Tara Whelan (17), from Kilmeaden, Co Waterford, died instantly on Saturday when the bomb exploded on a packed minibus in the western Turkish resort of Kusadasi. Three Turkish people, two women and a man, were also killed.
A 21-year-old British woman who was transferred to hospital in Izmir died later. Another 13 people were injured, five of them British.
Two of the British tourists were reported to be in critical condition.
Yesterday an official from the Irish Embassy in Ankara arrived in Kusadasi, a popular resort with Irish holidaymakers.
It is believed about 1,200 Irish tourists would normally be in the region. Three flights full of tourists returned from the region yesterday travelling with Irish tour operator Sunworld.
A spokeswoman said some customers due to fly out over the weekend had cancelled holidays after the bomb.
Yesterday it was confirmed that Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern will raise security issues for Irish tourists on a visit to Turkey this week.
He had been scheduled to visit the country in his capacity as UN special envoy for bilateral meetings on UN reform, but now security will be a primary concern.
"The Minister will be discussing the security situation and safety for Irish tourists given that an Irish woman has been killed," a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said.
The attack happened shortly before 11am local time as the bus was driving through Kusadasi towards one of the town's central beaches.
Resat Erguvan (51), who rushed from his fourth-floor classroom in a private school opposite, said: "All that was left of the bus were the wheels and a few seats. There were flames and black smoke."
By the time he got there, he added, bystanders had pulled the injured out of the wreckage.
Yesterday in the resort the streets were quiet after the second attack there this year. A policeman was killed on April 30th trying to defuse a bomb in a cassette-player.
An explosion last week in the nearby resort of Cesme wounded 21 people, including three tourists.
After the latest attack, security was tightened at resorts across the region, with Turkish police on the lookout for suspicious packages and vehicles. Investigators sifted through the minibus wreckage.
Hurriyet newspaper said a group called the Kurdistan Liberation Hawks (TAK) claimed responsibility, but this could not be confirmed. It has claimed a series of bombings in the last year, including the Cesme attack.
Provincial governor Mustafa Malay told Anatolian news agency the explosives were hidden in a small bag under one of the seats and were detonated by remote control or a timer, not by a suicide bomber as originally thought.