“I can’t find the words to describe these horrible moments,” Hulya Unal told Hurriyet newspaper about the moment of the bombing. “You feel the despair to your bones.”

Among these dead were her cousins and members of her husband’s wider family. The large family come from Siirt, in south-eastern Turkey, and many members travelled to Ankara to take part in the pro-Kurdish peace rally, organised by leftist groups.

“We lost 18 of our family members. The identification process of three of my relatives is ongoing,” she said, from near the forensic ward.

The 15 bodies that were identified were sent back to Siirt, near the Syrian and Iraqi borders. Unal said she will wait in Ankara for the last bodies to be released for burial.

“I had planned to show them Ankara, but now I’m sending back their dead bodies.”

She said she was lucky on only one account: Normally, her 7-year-old son accompanies her to political rallies, but this time she was running late and left him with a friend.

At least 97 people died in the Ankara blasts and several people remain in critical care. Reports say doctors are being forced to amputate limbs in order to save the lives of the some of the most badly injured.