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Everyone was running, screaming: Witness
ISTANBUL: Witnesses to the carnage at Istanbul airport described scenes of blind panic and stomach-churning terror after attackers detonated three bombs and began
ISTANBUL: Witnesses to the carnage at Istanbul airport described scenes of blind panic and stomach-churning terror after attackers detonated three bombs and began shooting indiscriminately in the main terminal building.
Paul Roos, 77, a South African tourist on his way home, said he saw one of the attackers “randomly shooting” in the departures hall from about 50 metres away. “He was wearing all black. His face was not masked... We ducked behind a counter but I stood up and watched him. Two explosions went off shortly after one another. By that time he had stopped shooting,” Roos told Reuters.
“He turned around and started coming towards us. He was holding his gun inside his jacket. He looked around anxiously to see if anyone was going to stop him and then went down the escalator ... We heard some more gunfire and then another explosion, and then it was over.”
Forty-one people died in the bloodiest of four attacks in the city this year. Turkish authorities have pointed the finger at Islamic State militants.
Abandoned luggage sprinkled with shards of shattered glass was strewn across the airport’s blood-splattered floor.
Otfah Mohamed Abdullah was checking her luggage in when she saw one of the attackers pull out a hidden gun and begin shooting.
“He’s shooting up, two times, and he’s beginning to shoot people like that, like he was walking like a prophet,” she told AFPTV.
“... and then my sister was running I don’ t know which way. She was running and after that I was falling down, I was on the ground until he finished. Until now I can’t find my sister and I don’t have anything, everything (I have) is inside.”
Japanese national Yumi Koyi was waiting for her flight to Tokyo when the attacks began and she was swept up in a scramble to escape.
“I heard gunshots so it was really panicking, everyone together.”
Latvian businessman Rihards Kalnins told AFP that those inside the terminal had no way of knowing what was happening.
“There was just panic about what was going on. People were running, screaming. I didn’t know what was going on.”
