Guardian reporters Constanze Letsch and Emma Graham-Harrison have published a definitive second-day story covering the attacks on Ataturk airport now, so point your browsers there to get the full low-down.
In the meantime, here is a summary of the main events:
41 people were killed and 239 wounded in a gun and bombing attack on the Ataturk international airport in Istanbul on Tuesday night.
13 of the 41 dead are foreign nationals, including five from Saudi Arabia, two from Iraq, and one each from Tunisia, Uzbekistan, China, Iran, Ukraine and Jordan. The Palestinian ambassador to Turkey has also said a Palestinian woman was killed.
Authorities believe three men armed with Kalashnikov rifles attacked the airport, detonating suicide vests when confronted by police officers.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Turkey’s prime minister, Binali Yildirim, has said the attack was carried out by Daesh (Islamic State).
Yildirim said the men caught a taxi to the airport, launching their assault at the international arrivals terminal.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the attack showed “the dark face of terror that targets innocent civilians”
Atatürk airport has reopened, with incoming and outgoing flights – which were halted in the immediate aftermath of the attack – operating this morning, although many are cancelled or delayed.
Foreign ministers from around the world, including Russia and Israel - two countries previously at odds with Turkey - have offered their condolences and support.
Israel’s president has followed up his country’s recent rapprochement with Turkey by sending his condolences after the attack on Ataturk airport.
Reuven Rivlin told Recep Tayyip Erdogan that their countries’ reconciliation pact will help with joint efforts to fight terrorism, and that Israel is willing to help Turkey recover from the attack.
The two countries, once close allies, have suffered six years of animosity after Israeli commandoes killed Turkish nationals sailing aboard an aid convoy bound for the Gaza Strip.
Rivlin’s letter says:
I take this opportunity to welcome the chance to renew our good relationship especially because our strengthened dialogue will greatly aid in our joint efforts against this threat, and because it sends a strong message to the terrorists that we will stand untied against hatred.
Colleagues on the graphics desk have put together a new map of the events at Ataturk airport last night. It takes account of eyewitnesses reports that claim - in contradiction of the official account - that a gunman made it past security cordons and into the check-in area on the airport’s first floor departure lounge.
A Palestinian woman was among those killed in the blasts at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, Palestine’s ambassador to Turkey has said. Six more Palestinians were injured, including a 17-year-old girl from Gaza who is critically hurt.
Ambassador Faed Mustafa confirmed the death and injuries to Palestinian media Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. Nisreen Melhem, 28, from the West Bank town of Arraba, was killed and her 34-year-old husband and 3-year-old daughter were injured, according to Moath Hamed, a Palestinian journalism student visiting the family in the hospital.
The Palestinians were living and working in Saudi Arabia and had landed in Istanbul for vacation.
Pope Francis has denounced the “brutal terrorist attack” at Istanbul’s airport and is calling for the killers behind it to change their ways.
In a noontime blessing from his studio window, Francis said he was praying for the victims, their families “and the dear Turkish people.” He asked the entire piazza to pray in silence and then led the crowd in the Hail Mary prayer.
He said: “May the Lord convert the hearts of the violent ones and support our efforts toward the path of peace.”
Pope Francis giving mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on Wednesday Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP
A full breakdown of the nationalities of those killed in the attacks has been released to Kareem Shaheen, the Guardian’s Middle East reporter, by a Turkish official.
According to the latest figures, there are 41 dead and 239 wounded, with 109 discharged from hospital. Among those killed are:
Five from Saudi Arabia
Two from Iraq
One from Tunisia
One from Uzbekistan
One from China
One from Iran
One from Ukraine
One from Jordan
This means that 13 out of the 41 dead are foreign nationals. The rest are Turkish citizens.
The number of dead from last night’s coordinated terrorist attacks on Istanbul’s main airport has now risen to 41, according to the Associated Press.
The agency cites an announcement from the governor of Istanbul that gives the new death toll. It is not clear what the reasons are for the increased death toll.
Laurence Cameron, a journalist with British TV company intrepid, was travelling through Istanbul airport to the Turkish city of Izmir when the bombs went off. He told Guardian reporter Emma Graham-Harrison what happened after he departed from the flight and walked into the airport:
As I walked up the bridge to the airport, I heard the sound of panic. I kept going anyway, I wasn’t really thinking, and as I turned the corner into the main tunnel I saw a wave of people racing towards me in complete terror, babies screaming, an old man in a wheelchair stranded in the middle of the crowd. He had lost his friends.
People were shouting “bomb! bomb!”, “run! run!”, but there isn’t anywhere to run except back to the gates that you came from, so people were funnelled back towards the planes.
I kept on going towards the visa desks, but they were all deserted except for police patrolling with guns who ordered me back.
Cameron said that after about 20 minutes wait, officials opened up the visa desks and allowed people to exit - checking their passports despite a scene of disarray.
On the other side, in the baggage area, you could see where the bomb had gone off. There was dust everywhere, ceiling panels on the floor, shattered glass, blood and big piles of dusty luggage that had obviously been abandoned by people trying to escape.
You do think ‘shit, if our plane had landed half an hour earlier, that could have been my bag sitting there’. I saw a chap with a bloodied arm, and someone with a rag on his head, but nothing catastrophic, the worst injured people had probably been taken to hospital already.
As we came out, we saw the impact of an even bigger bomb on our left, by the start of the taxi rank. There was blood smeared on the floor, sirens, at least seven ambulances. Panels at the side of the building had been blown off, the walls were shredded.
The police kept pushing us along, until the cordon ended at a multi-storey car park, where they just left us in chaos.
The Guardian’s reporter in Istanbul, Constanze Letsch, has been speaking to people around the airport this morning.
Engin Sürer, a taxi driver said he had driven away from the international terminal around 30 minutes before the explosions and said he was still shaken by the attack.
I am not afraid to work, but of course I am nervous. I would have never thought that such an attack would be possible at the airport.
He said that he had not been able to reach all of his colleagues on duty at the airport at the time of the explosions, one of which occurred in proximity to a taxi stand outside the international terminal. At least one taxi driver working at the airport at the time, Mustafa Biyikli, has been confirmed dead this morning.
Taxi driver Eftal Erdin, 55, said that he was angry after news circulated on social media saying that taxi drivers asked for much higher fees from people stranded at the airport after the attack. He said:
Many of our friends drove injured people to the surrounding hospitals for free. Those drivers have no shame, but we want the world to know that Turkey is not a bad place. These attackers want to bring tourism in Turkey to its knees, but we want to make sure that people know that we will not allow for that to happen.
Turkish officials have said 13 foreign nationals were killed in the attack on Ataturk airport last night. The rest of the 36 victims were Turkish citizens.
An Iranian and a Ukrainian are among the victims who have been identified so far, officials said earlier. Nearly 150 people were wounded.
A video posted on Twitter shows the moment one of the Ataturk airport attackers detonated his suicide bomb. The clip, which has no sound, begins with dozens of people milling around as normal. Then they suddenly all begin to run away from something. before a huge blast goes off around them, filling the air with smoke and debris.
Atatürk Havalimanı'nda çekilen görüntülerde canlı bomba saldırısı öncesi insanların ters yöne koştuğu görülüyor. pic.twitter.com/PqPMWvPNre
The prime minister of Albania, whose plane touched down at Ataturk airport minutes after the attacks that killed 36 and wounded 147, has tweeted his condolences to the victims and their families.
Edi Rama said in a message on Twitter that he felt “deep pity for the lost innocent lives in that barbarous act of those who have neither God or hope nor a place among the people.”
Rama is making an official visit to Turkey with his finance minister, Arben Ahmetaj, and a delegation. He said all of the planned meetings would go ahead.
Keqardhje e thelle per jetet e pafajshme te humbura ne kete tjeter akt barbar te atyre qe s'kane as Zot as shprese dhe as vend mes njerezve!
