An explosion at a campaign rally for the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, left two dead and more than a 100 wounded just two days before Turkey’s parliamentary elections, the semi-official Anadolou news agency reported, quoting Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker.
The explosion occurred in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, an area populated by many Kurds.
The HDP accused the ruling AKP party and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being behind the explosion.
“This is all an effort to stop the rise of the HDP, an effort to keep the HDP below the election threshold,” HDP parliamentarian Sebahat Tuncel told CNN. “This was a massacre attempt.”
Turkey’s energy minister, Taner Yildiz, denied an electrical or technical failure caused the blast, as Anadolu originally reported Friday.
Voters in Turkey will go to the polls June 7 to elect a new parliament.
The HDP is standing as a party for the first time in a general election. If the party garners the 10% of votes required to enter the parliament, Turkey’s political landscape may see change.
Last month, an explosion rocked the HDP regional office in Adana in southeastern Turkey, injuring six people, according to the party’s press office.