.......Selin Çelik, 28, was on a minibus to Istanbul’s Taksim Avenue when the explosion happened. She was heavily wounded in the head before being rushed to hospital. Her family waited for her recovery and she received blood donations after a social media campaign went viral. However, she succumbed to her injuries despite all attempts to save her life.
“My cousin was in a minibus near the scene of the explosion. Her friends searched for her in all hospitals to find her after we couldn’t hear from her. Her friend recognized her from her tattoo,” Çelik’s cousin Tankurt Karamuk said.
She was the sister of Pelin Çelik, a master swimmer of the Galatasaray sports club.
Velat Demiroğlu was the driver of another minibus driving past the Vodafone Arena at the time of the explosion. Demiroğlu was from southeastern province of Diyarbakır’s Çınar district, and his Facebook profile had a photo of the Oct. 10, 2015 Ankara bombing calling for peace and saying: “Whatever its view, whatever its justification, we don’t want death. No cause is more important than human life.”
Mustafa Berkay Akbaş, only 19, originally from the Black Sea province of Sinop, was in Istanbul for a two-day visit. He was a medical student in Ankara’s Başkent University.
“He was 19 years old. He was in Istanbul for only two days. He and his friends were there to travel around. They were in a taxi, passing by the area at the time by coincidence,” his father said after his son was killed in the attack. ......
