57 people lost their lives and 92 people were injured in a suicide bomb attack on the night of henna in the month of August last year in Beybahçe Neighborhood of Şahinbey district of Gaziantep. It's been a year since the attack.

The relatives of those who lost their lives in the explosion in Şahinbey district came to the Yeşilkent cemetery on the anniversary of the attack. The families who came to the graveyard from the early hours of the morning read the Qur'an and prayed. Even though a year passed after the incident, it was seen that the pains still freshness as fresh as the first day.

In his attack on the cemetery visit, Hazal Yavuz, who lost her 13-year-old son Orhan Yavuz, said she could not forget what she has experienced on that night.

Yavuz said that her tears never stopped for a year and added, “We had no enemies. How did we know it is going to be like that? If we had enemies, we would not go to the wedding anyway. I've been living apart from my son for a year. My only thought is my son. He is always in my mind. For a year my tears never stopped. I cry every night when I go to bed. I cannot sleep until the morning.”

“Things have returned to the battlefield”

Yavuz said, “That night I was in the wedding. The wedding was about to end. Then a voice came in, people began to disperse. We do not even know what it is. It was like the apocalypse has happened. The screams of people are still out of my ears. Everyone ran to one side. For the first time, I have met such a scene. Things have returned to the battlefield. The screams of little children like my son wounded our feelings. I did not see my son that night. Then they told me that my son was dead.”

Leyla Özer, another mother who has lost her 5-years-old granddaughter Semanur Özer, and her 12-years-old Kerem Özer, expressed her feelings as, “The pain of our children do not leave us even for a moment,” and said that despite the fact that it has been a year since the incident, the pain has preserved its freshness.

“Tears never stop from my eyes”

Özer said, “We do not know what to say. Our heart has burnt. Surely Allah is great. I wish God also put the pain in them who did this. Make it worse for those who give us this pain. What was the sin of these angel-like children? Our heart is burning. The pain of our children does not come out of our hearts for a moment. God loved these people and took them. So what the perpetrators will do? They burn our hearts, they finished us. Tears never stop from my eyes.”

Zehra Ayhan, who has lost her 11-years-old Feride Ayhan and also wounded with her 9-years-old daughter Esmanur in the blast and had been treated in the hospital for about two weeks and couldn’t attend her daughter’s funeral, expressed that her pain still refreshes due to her demised daughter.

“I could not even attend my daughter's funeral”

Although one year after the attack, Ayhan said that the pain is still as fresh as the first day, she said:

“We went to the wedding that night. The wedding was about to end. My children were there with me. There was an explosion. Then I don’t remember anything. When I opened my eyes, I was ill, I was injured. I first asked about my children right away. They told me that one daughter was wounded and the other daughter was missing. They searched all the hospitals but couldn’t find my daughter. Then we went to forensics. They did a DNA test. Four days later than the explosion, we learned that my daughter died and her body is in the forensics. I was being treated at the hospital for being injured. I could not even attend my daughter's funeral. My daughter was already shattered. I came to my daughter's grave after discharged from the hospital. I met with the grave of my daughter who was next to me in the wedding.”

“We all depressed”

Mother Ayhan stated her daughter become permanently disabled due to the attack, said, “They burned of our hearts and I hope Allah has burned their hearts too. We've been doing this ever since. This is what my daughter has become. The whole body was crushed. All her bones broken. My daughter was crippled after this. We cannot recover from the shock. My children and I not feeling good since that day. We all depressed. We do not know what to do.” (İbrahim Koçyiğit - ILKHA)