A 63-year-old Turkish citizen was shot dead in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Monday, becoming the sixth Turkish national to have been killed since the uprising started last year, Today's Zaman reported.
Aliye Tas, originally from Turkey's southern province of Kilis, was driving in Aleppo's Azez district and was caught in a firefight between regime troops and opposition fighters. She was in Aleppo on business.
Her body was brought to Kilis State Hospital Morgue. The body will later be taken to Adana Forensic Medical Institute for an autopsy.
March of last year marked a deadly time for Turkish nationals as three Turkish truck drivers were killed. Suphi Ezer, 45, who was seriously injured in Syria, died later in March in a hospital in Gaziantep, a city near the Syrian border.
Another Turkish driver, Mustafa Uctas, was shot to death in Idlib in mid-March. He was a father of three. And on March 15, Hasan Kocak, another Turkish truck driver, died in the armed conflict as he was passing through Syria.
In December of last year, Munir Dural was killed in Syria while going to Saudi Arabia for work. Dural's vehicle was confiscated after he crossed into Syria and he got caught in the middle of a firefight as his car was being searched. And in November of last year, three buses carrying Turkish pilgrims to Turkey from Saudi Arabia, where they had gone to perform the Islamic pilgrimage, were attacked at a check point in Syria. Two Turkish citizens were wounded as a result of the assault.
Two Turkish journalists had also gone missing in Syria for two months, but were recently released.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry earlier issued a travel warning for Turkish citizens planning to travel to Syria. It warned Turkish nationals not to travel to Syria unless absolutely necessary due to difficulties in establishing public order.