Turkey: Blast at Mardin hospital near Syrian border leaves multiple victims dead and injured

Three bombs blasts, one close to a hospital, in southeastern Turkey in which dozens were injured and at least 12 killed have been blamed on Kurdish separatists by police. One of the attacks at Mardin State Hospital in Kızıltepe targeted an army truck but dozens of civilians were caught in the explosion and five were killed. The blast was heard some miles away. Several of the dead and wounded were young children.

In another attack, a car bomb exploded 110 km north in the city of Diyarbakir, also in southeastern Turkey. Three people are believed to have died there and another four were killed in a bombing close to the border with Iraq. Isis have been behind similar blasts recently but police are blaming Kurds for today's attacks (10 August). The area, which adjoins the Syria and Iraq borders, has seen intense fighting between Turkish troops and Kurdish separatists including the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) who are fighting for a separate Kurdish state.

Since the PKK began its armed struggle against the Turkish state in 1984 around 40,000 people have been killed. The PKK and related groups such as the TAK have been blamed for several bomb blasts in Istanbul and Ankara, and Turkish troops — some of whom took part in the attempted coup against President Erdogan in July — have been blamed for many atrocities mostly in the southeast of the country.

In May Turkey rejected claims by the United Nations (UN) that it had committed acts of violence in the area including shooting at civilians, damaging property and burning up to 100 people alive as they sheltered in basements. UN high commissioner Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said: "To have such a lack of information about what is happening in such a large and geographically accessible area is both extraordinary and deeply worrying."