Nilay Kar
28 January 2016•Update: 28 January 2016
ISTANBUL
Anadolu Agency does not verify these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
Dailies on Thursday dedicated their front pages to four martyred security officers in southeastern Diyarbakir province.
HURRIYET ran with the front page headline “4 great sorrows”, referring to the families of the fallen officers.
Running photos of the deceased, some of them with their families, the daily said that Turkey was shaken by their sorrow.
Three soldiers and one police officer, who were heavily wounded in an armed attack by the members of the separatist terrorist organization PKK in the central Sur district in Diyarbakir province, died at the hospital on Wednesday.
The Turkish General Staff also said on Wednesday in a statement that at least 20 PKK terrorists had also been killed in counter-terrorism operations in Turkey's southeastern provinces.
“4 martyrs” was MILLIYET’s headline. The daily wrote that the father of a five-year-old girl was among the martyrs in Diyarbakir.
Alongside a picture of her, the daily’s subhead read “Eylul is left without a father at the age of 5”.
Using the same photo, VATAN’s headline read “They [PKK] also leave her orphan”.
The daily wrote: “4 security officers were martyred. 6 children have been left orphaned. Eylul is among them.”
Several newspapers also covered residents in Sur district fleeing their homes.
STAR used the headline “Escape from PKK, cursing” to report on Sur district residents, who took to the roads with their belongings, visibly frustrated with the terrorist organization PKK after it dig new ditches and set up new barricades.
YENISAFAK also ran a photo showing Sur residents leaving their homes with luggage and belongings.
The daily quoted some of the residents as saying, “We are in difficult situation. We don’t have any place to go.”
VATAN’s headline read “Damn your ditches”, referring to remarks of residents.
In other news, MILLIYET used the headline “Zika panic in Europe”, reporting that the virus was now present in Europe as well.
Denmark, Switzerland and Portugal announced that the virus had been diagnosed in travelers, the daily said.
Originating in Latin America, the mosquito-borne virus causes symptoms in roughly one in five adults, including fever, rash and conjunctivitis.
Zika has been blamed for a recent spike in microcephaly - a birth defect characterized by unusually small heads and underdeveloped brains in newborns.
Cases of Zika virus were first confirmed in Africa, Asia and in certain Pacific Islands.
In the Western hemisphere, several cases have also been confirmed in the U.S, South America, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Similarly, HURRIYET also ran with the headline: “Warning, Zika virus is in Europe.”
In economics news, DUNYA wrote that terror-stricken provinces in the southeast of Turkey have been waiting for a 303-article economics package.
The package announced by Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus on Monday has increased the expectation of economic recovery in the region, the daily noted.
