Erdogan slamed over wildfires sweeping Turkey

Fires broke out in 7 Turkish provinces, namely, Adana, Kayseri, Antalya, Kütahya, Mugla, Mersin, and Osmaniye. 111 fires have burned across the country since Wednesday, while six fires are still burning in three different cities as of Sunday.

Hundreds of miles west, in the tourist hotspot of Bodrum, more than 1,000 people were evacuated by boat on both Sunday and Saturday to escape the wildfires. At least eight people have died in more than 100 blazes that broke out earlier this week.

Seven people were killed in the fires in Manavgat, Antalya Province, and the eighth victim died in Marmaris, Anadolu reported. The latest victims include a Turkish-German couple who were found in a house, it said.

Helicopters from Russia and Ukraine participated in extinguishing 1,140 burning points amid absence of Turkish fire fighter planes.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition leader in Turkey, criticized the head of the Republican People’s Party, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for “the delay in controlling the raging forest fires since Wednesday.”

“I wish you had bought firefighting planes instead of your own,” Kilicdaroglu told Erdogan.

He continued "Erdogan bought 13 private planes for himself, but he could have bought one plane for himself, and buy 12 other firefighting planes to put out the fires,” noting that “the Turkish president has been in power for 19 years, so if one firefighting plane is bought every year, it will be Today, Turkey has 19 firefighting aircraft.”