Turkey: Senegalese man recalls foiled 2016 coup attempt

DAKAR, Senegal

A Senegalese man who witnessed the 2016 defeated coup attempt in Turkey remembered that bloody night which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

"I saw the coup plotters on one side trying to overthrow the government and a patriotic nation on the other shielding their bodies to protect their president and homeland," Abdoulaye Thiagam Collo told Anadolu Agency.

FETO and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

Turkey also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.

Collo, the proprietor of a clothing and shoe store in Dakar, capital of the West African nation, said he bought most of his products from Istanbul.

He arrived in Istanbul on the morning of July 15 and stayed over at the house of a friend to wait for the layover for his next flight to London.

People versus tanks

"It was the evening of July 15 when my sister from Senegal called me and said there was a coup going on in Turkey. I heard my mother was crying,” recalled Collo.

“When my friend and I went out to check what was going on, we saw people crying, people shouting: 'It’s a coup'."

He was scared, he said, as this was the first time in his life he had ever witnessed a coup attempt.

Collo and his friend were wary of going out, but soon they joined the crowds after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the people to pour into the streets, he said.

Collo recalls how terrified he was when he saw warplanes flying low to the ground and the sounds of explosions and gunfire.

The Senegalese businessman praised the Turkish people, as he saw them "sitting on the road to block tanks from getting through and tried to catch the putschists with their bare hands."

"Since then I have great respect for Turks, because they’re very patriotic. That’s why the Turkish nation, which defends their country, is esteemed by all nations."

Collo left Istanbul the next morning, but said he could not stop thinking about that fateful night.

"I knew that the Turks were good at trading, but I learned that night that they are patriots as well, which impressed me a lot," Collo said.