Stray dog brutality in Ankara: A female academic's face and leg were mutilated.

An academic in Ankara was attacked by stray dogs while returning home from a walk. The woman, whose legs and face were mutilated, was rescued by her neighbors and taken to the hospital.

The incident occurred in the evening in the Çiğdem neighborhood of the Çankaya district, where Prof. Dr. Meliha Yılmaz, who works at Gazi University Faculty of Education, was attacked by dogs while returning home.

The woman, who was bitten and knocked to the ground by the dogs, was rescued by her neighbors. Upon the report of witnesses, a medical team arrived at the scene. Meliha Yılmaz was taken to the hospital with injuries. She was treated at the hospital and discharged later that night. After the incident, animal lovers reacted to the municipal officials who came to the scene to collect the dogs.

"NINE DOGS ATTACKED AND KNOCKED OUR NEIGHBOR TO THE GROUND"

Fatih Fethi Aksoy, the Chairman of the Çiğdem Education, Environment, and Solidarity Association, emphasized that this was not the first incident and that there has been a dog problem in the neighborhood for years. He stated, "I learned about the incident around 5:00 PM yesterday from a neighbor's phone call. They said there was a dog attack. We immediately took our muhtar and went to the scene together. One of our neighbors was lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Other neighbors had intervened and applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. We waited for the ambulance. It was a bit delayed, but fortunately, it arrived on time. Our neighbor was taken to the emergency room. She was in the emergency room until 1:00 AM. Later, she was discharged and went home. Her general condition is good now. She has quite deep wounds on one of her legs. There was a lot of bleeding from there. There are also significant scratches and injuries on the other leg and face. Plastic surgery was performed on those areas. Nine of the dogs in that area attacked and knocked our neighbor to the ground. Then they dragged her. At that moment, our neighbors intervened, drove the dogs away, and called the ambulance," he said.

"ONE HELD HER HAND, ANOTHER BIT HER LEG AND FACE"

Özlem Onay, one of the neighbors who intervened at the scene for the attacked academic, stated that they rushed outside as soon as they heard the screams, saying, "I heard a sound all of a sudden. We heard a scream and ran to the balcony. My husband also ran downstairs immediately. Since there have been similar attacks before, we know what these kinds of screams mean. There were three dogs dragging our neighbor Meliha towards the forest. It was like watching a documentary; we saw it and started shouting. When we shouted, they stopped, and Meliha started crawling towards us. One was holding her hand, another bit her leg and even her face. It was a horrifying sight; we couldn't recover from it," she expressed.

"WE CAN'T TAKE A STEP DUE TO DOG TERROR"

Despite being happy to live in the neighborhood, resident Gülseren explained that they are disturbed by stray dogs, saying, "It was around 5:00 PM yesterday; we were standing on the balcony. We heard a horrifying scream from Meliha. Her face and leg were in terrible condition, covered in blood. I immediately grabbed my phone and dialed 112, but I couldn't speak. Meanwhile, the ambulance came very late. I condemn those who did not give way to the ambulance. We waited 45 minutes for the ambulance with a bleeding patient. The patient was in a terrible state. We are all very happy to live in this neighborhood, but we can't take a step due to the noise of the dogs and dog terror," she stated.