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A controversial performance on Turkish Children’s Day featured kindergarten kids “clashing” with each other and playing fallen “martyrs” in a re-enactment of the events of the failed 2016 coup.
The performance was a part of the celebrations for National Sovereignty and Children's Day, a uniquely Turkish holiday, and took place in the sports hall of Sami Yangın school in the city of Kayseri on Sunday.
Kindergarten students enacted two separate plays, one was devoted to the World War I Battle of Gallipoli, while the other, dubbed ‘July 15,’ recreated the events of last year’s failed coup attempt, which left over 200 dead and some 300 injured.
The children played out the attempted coup using plastic prop assault rifles. In the finale, pupils playing soldiers loyal to Erdogan draped their “fallen” comrade with a Turkish flag and saluted the “martyr”.