“In total, 15 of our citizens lost their lives and 22 were injured … in an accident involving a bus, an emergency team and an ambulance,” said Gaziantep Governor Davut Gul. Local information said that an ambulance, a fire engine and a bus carrying journalists were involved in a collision with a passenger bus, which overturned and was dragged for several meters along the road. In the process, it hit a fire department and a paramedic team responding to an earlier traffic incident, as well as a broadcast vehicle belonging to the Turkish news agency IHA, TRT World news channel reported. The governor said three firefighters, two emergency workers and two journalists were among the dead. The crash happened around 10:45 local time between Gaziantep and Nizip, near Turkey’s border with Syria. Photos from the scene show the back of an ambulance ripped open and metal debris strewn around it. Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in a statement on Twitter after the accident: “According to preliminary findings, the result of the bus that hit 112 Health, firemen and police teams was related to an accident on the Gaziantep Nizip highway. “A total of 15 of our citizens lost their lives, including two health workers, two IHA journalists, three firefighters and eight passengers. “The injured were taken to the hospital. The governor and the chief of police are at the scene of the accident. “May God have mercy on our dead fellow citizens and grant a speedy recovery to the wounded.”
