At least 35 people were killed and 40 people were injured during a shooting at Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, at around 1:30 a.m. local time on New Years Day. The provincial governor described this as a terrorist attack.
Around 500 to 700 people were celebrating the start of 2017 when an armed man dressed as Santa Claus was believed to have shot at police outside the nightclub before entering and shooting at the people inside. The outfit the attacker wore is said to serve no clear purpose to the incident.
Reina is one of Istanbul’s best-known and most popular nightclubs, located among many other clubs, restaurants, and art galleries. Since the club is located on the shore of the Bosphorus Strait in the Ortakoy district, many people jumped into the water to same themselves from the shooter, later to be rescued by the police.
“A terrorist with a long-range weapon… brutally and savagely carried out this incident by firing bullets on innocent people who were there solely to celebrate the New Year and have fun,” governor Vasip Sahin told reporters at the scene.
Dozens of police cars and ambulances were dispatched to the nightclub. It was initially thought that the shooter was inside of the building and special forces were prepared to raid it. Another source said that the shooter’s whereabouts were unclear.
There have been no responsibility claims for the shooting, and the large amount of recent attacks in Turkey have left many people wary.
Turkey has seen many attacks in the past few weeks. On Dec. 10, a pair of bombings in Istanbul killed 38 people and injured another 155. They occurred after a highly-attended soccer game. On Dec. 17, a car bomb exploded, killing 13 soldiers and injuring another 55. On Dec. 20, three days after the car bomb explosion, a gunman assassinated Russia’s ambassador to Turkey at an art gallery in Ankara, Turkey’s capital city.
Security measures have increased in major cities in Turkey. In Istanbul, 17,000 police officers were put on duty. Turkey faces many threats, especially from the war in neighboring Syria. Many people in Istanbul chose to stay inside during the New Year’s celebrations to avoid these types of attacks and to try to keep themselves safe.
