Death toll up to 102 in Ankara train station attack as victim succumbs to wounds after 20 months

İZMİR

DHA photo

Mustafa Budak has become the 102nd victim of the Ankara train station attack undertaken by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Oct. 10, 2015, after losing his life on June 25 following 20 months of treatment at hospital.Budak’s death was announced by the 10 October Solidarity Foundation (“10 Ekim Dayanışması”), a civil initiative formed in the wake of the attack.He had suffered from paralysis due to a spinal cord injury sustained in the bombing. He was initially treated at Ankara’s Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital but was later transferred to another hospital in the Aegean province of İzmir.Budak’s funeral, which also took place in İzmir, was attended by many locals and some of the other injured victims, media reports said.His brother, Ahmet Budak, spoke during the ceremony, saying he was the kind of person who went to any place as a “voice of struggle.”“He was a fighter. He wanted everyone to struggle … In the end he was injured when he went to the peace rally in Ankara with great hopes,” Ahmet Budak said.The Ankara bombing was the deadliest terror attack carried out in Turkey by ISIL, with suicide bombers targeting NGOs and supporters of left-wing parties holding a peace rally outside the capital’s main train station, weeks ahead of the Nov. 1, 2015 general election.