Three officers who protected Erdogan rally killed in bus accident

Three police officers died and 33 others were injured when a bus carrying the personnel who secured Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rally in the northeastern Gümüşhane province crashed while returning to their hometown of Malatya early on Oct. 13, the Hurriyet Daily News reported, citing Doğan News Agency.

The accident took place in the Central Anatolian province of Sivas amid intense rainfall, officials said. The police officers had been dispatched from the eastern province of Malatya to Gümüşhane some 500 kilometers to the north to provide additional security during Erdogan’s rally in Gümüşhane on Oct. 12.

Erdogan had held another meeting in the neighboring province of Bayburt earlier on Oct. 12.

The injured officers were rushed to hospitals around the city of Sivas. Doctors said many were in serious condition.

Erdogan has restarted his weekend mass rallies across Turkey, just as he hosted mass opening ceremonies when he was prime minister. He visited the Black Sea provinces of Trabzon and his homeland of Rize on Oct. 11.

Particularly in smaller provincial centers, Erdogan’s mass rallies usually require additional forces from other areas in the region to ensure security in addition to the police forces in the province and the president’s own security team.