Updated | Suicide bomber in Turkey wedding blast was teenager – Erdogan

The suicide bomber who attacked a wedding party in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep on Saturday was a child between the ages of 12 and 14, the country’s president said on Sunday.

In comments shown live by broadcaster NTV, Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed that the death toll of the wedding blast climbed to 51, while 69 people were wounded. 17 of the injured were “heavily” wounded, Erdogan said.

The suicide bomber detonated his explosives among people dancing on the street at a wedding party in Gaziantep, about 40km from the Syrian border.

Erdogan said it was likely that Islamic State militants carried out the late-night attack, the deadliest bombing this year in Turkey, which faces threats from militants at home and from neighbouring Syria.

In Gaziantep, the chief prosecutor's office said they had found a destroyed suicide vest at the blast site.

Just weeks ago, Erdogan and his government survived an attempted coup, which Ankara blames on U.S.-based Islamist preacher Fethullah Gulen. He has denied the charge.

Islamic State has been blamed for other attacks in Turkey, often targeting Kurdish gatherings in an effort to inflame ethnic tensions, and the deadliest previous one was last October at a rally of pro-Kurdish and labour activists in Ankara when suicide bombers killed more than 100 people.

Saturday’s wedding party was for a member of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party,  it said, and the groom was among those injured, and women and children had been among those killed.

Blood and burns marked the walls of the narrow lane where the blast hit. Women in white and checkered scarves cried, sitting cross-legged outside the morgue waiting for word on missing relatives.

Hundreds gathered for funerals on Sunday, some weeping at coffins draped in the green colour of Islam, local television images showed. But other funerals would have to wait because many of the victims were blown to pieces and DNA forensics tests would be needed to identify them, security sources said.

“The celebrations were coming to an end and there was a big explosion among people dancing,” said 25-year-old Veli Can. “There was blood and body parts everywhere.”

The local governor's office said in a statement 50 people were killed in the bombing, and more wounded were still being treated in hospitals around the province.

“We want to end these massacres,” witness Ibrahim Ozdemir said. “We are in pain, especially the women and children.”

Photos taken after the explosion showed several bodies covered with white sheets as a crowd gathered nearby.

Turkey has been rocked by a wave of attacks in the past year that have either been claimed by Kurdish militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party - known by its acronym PKK - or were blamed on IS.

In June, suspected IS militants attacked Istanbul's main airport with guns and bombs, killing 44 people.

Earlier this week, a string of bombings blamed on the PKK that targeted police and soldiers killed at least a dozen people. A fragile, two-year peace process between the PKK and the government collapsed last year, leading to a resumption of the three-decade-long conflict.

Violence flared up again this week in the largely Kurdish southeast, with bomb attacks leaving 10 people dead in separate attacks, mostly police and soldiers, in an escalation that officials blamed on the PKK, Kurdish separatists militants.