The attack took place on an unlit street in İstanbul’s Küçükçekmece district; Eser was heading home from a Student Selection Examination (ÖSS) course. Her face and body were badly burned and she was rushed to Bağcılar State Research and Teaching Hospital. Seven people suspected of being responsible for the Molotov cocktail attack were detained on Nov. 27 in an operation targeting members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The detainees are all reportedly around 18 years old.
Eser’s body was taken from the Bağcılar State Research and Teaching Hospital morgue and brought to an Ataköy mosque for the funeral prayer. Eser’s father, Zübeyir Eser, and her brothers, Ümit and Selçuk Eser, stood next to the coffin, which was wrapped with a Turkish flag and a red bridal veil, throughout the funeral ceremony. İstanbul Mayor Kadir Topbaş, Republican People’s Party (CHP) İstanbul deputy Çetin Soysal, Justice and Development Party (AK Party) İstanbul Provincial Chairman Aziz Babuşçu, Bakırköy Mayor Ateş Ünal Erzen, Zeytinburnu Mayor Murat Aydın and many of Eser’s friends, who shed tears for their friend during the funeral, were also present at the ceremony.
A woman, apparently a neighbor of Eser’s family, unfurled a Turkish flag, crying: “Enough is enough. Serap will not come back. We will not remain silent. We live for the flag.”
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was in Washington earlier this week, evaluated the criticism targeting his government’s democratic initiative, appealing to the tragic experience of Eser. Recalling that he said there would be those who would always want to provoke the democratic initiative process, Erdoğan said: “I talked about our daughter Serap in an opening ceremony on Saturday. We talked about targeting buses and damaging workplaces by putting Molotov cocktails in children’s hands. And there are efforts attempting to portray them [the attacker children] as innocent. But 17-year-old Serap burned in a bus, in which Molotov cocktails were thrown, and died. What would you say about it?”
