ISTANBUL — Two devastating explosions struck Saturday morning in the heart of Ankara, the Turkish capital, killing more than 90 people who had gathered for a peace rally and heightening tensions just three weeks before snap parliamentary elections.
Late Saturday, the prime minister's office said that at least 95 people were killed and 246 were wounded.
The blasts, which appeared to be the deadliest terrorist attack in modern Turkey's history, occurred near Ankara's main train station just as groups of Kurds and leftists planned to march to protest the recent resumption of armed conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish militants. It is a conflict that has been waged for nearly three decades, but in recent times the two sides seemed on the path to peace.
"We were expecting an attack in Ankara before the election, but nothing to this extent," said Sedat Kartal, an Ankara resident reached by phone, who rushed to the scene after hearing the first explosion from a distance. "There's so much hate and polarization, nothing is surprising anymore."
Turkey is facing a number of destabilizing forces: violence, political instability, economic uncertainty and a growing flow of refugees from the civil war in Syria. All together, the currents buffeting Turkey have evoked the memories of the 1990s, when the country was also gripped by violence and political uncertainty.
After Saturday's attack, emergency medical workers tended to the dead and wounded, calls went out in Ankara for blood donations and political leaders, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, canceled their scheduled events for the day and rushed to the capital. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu canceled campaign events and called an emergency meeting in Ankara.
Erdogan, in a short statement posted to the presidency's website, said, "I strongly condemn this heinous attack on our unity and our country's peace."
Images on social media showed bodies covered in the yellow, purple and green banners of the Kurdish political party, the Peoples' Democratic Party, or HDP. A video that was shared on social media and by the Turkish press showed a group of young demonstrators holding hands and chanting just before the first blast is seen in the background. The explosion sent the crowd running toward the nearby train station.
Turkish authorities were investigating claims that the attacks were the work of suicide bombers. No group claimed responsibility for that attack, but the Turkish authorities blamed the Islamic State.