Sunday March 13, 2016, attack in Ankara, Turkey

You know when all over the sudden you want to do something without know why?

Yesterday was one of those days.

I went to the mall to buy a new pair of jeans, because the ones I have are more holes than jeans. I walked one mall, and then I went to another one and nothing. All over the sudden I felt very tired.

As I was going back can forth in my head:

“I am tired. I want to go back to the hotel.

But it’s only one more floor to see…

But I won’t’ find anything anyway, so why go”.

And so on.

So, I decided to go back to the hotel.

I took a bus instead of the metro because I wanted to see some of the city.

I walked the three blocks from the bus station to the hotel, stopping at the park to take couple pictures.

After arriving at the hotel, I stayed in the lobby talking with 3 guys. All over the sudden, the building shook tremendously, for what seemed an eternity.

The noise of the explosion and the trembling of the building felt like if the explosion had been next door to us.

A suicide car bomber exploded by the Kizilay Square on Ataturk Bulvari, between the bus station and metro station, three blocks from the hotel I am staying, right in the center of town. There are some government ministries on that street too. I guess that was the reason of the target location.

Many people were running, crying and screaming. Cars were backing up as the sirens kept getting louder.  

Total chaos.

I was amazed about the speed that the police, the fire department, ambulances, and some police with a different type of uniform, responded to the bombing. It was less than a minute by the time we heard the sirens.

So far there are 37 dead and 153 injured.

Two Kurdish militants, a man and a woman, orchestrated the attack. However, no group has claimed responsibility for it.

Three weeks ago it was another attack by a Kurdish group also in Ankara, which killed 29 military personnel.

Just to think that that is the metro I take all the time. However, today, after only walking for 6 hours, I was tired and I came back earlier than normal. And I decided to take a bus so I could see the city. The bus terminal is one block from the metro station in the direction of the bombing.

Just to think that one hour earlier I was there, crossing the square and stopping to take some pictures…

I guess it was my lucky day. But not for the people that died. Many young people, teenagers died.

And for what?

And where is the outcry of the people?

This is the third attack in Ankara in the last few months.

In the first one 102 people died, the second one 29 and now, 37 as far as I know.

And still no outcry for all these lives lost.
 My daughter was trying to find some information in the news about the attack, and nothing.
Only a little mention  in CNN about the fact that one of the perpetrators was a woman

i guess people in other countries are more important than Turks.

Kizilay Square before the attack