Sixteen people were murdered on Saturday in southeast Turkey after a bus collided with emergency workers and journalists who were attending an earlier accident on a motorway near the city of Gaziantep, according to local officials.

Three firemen, four emergency medical personnel, and two drone operators from a Turkish news agency were among those killed, according to regional governor Davut Gul.

“A passenger bus collided here at 10:45 this morning,” Gul said, reporting from the scene of the accident on the route east of Gaziantep.

“Another bus crashed 200 yards behind the fire department, medical teams, and other colleagues who were attending to the disaster. The second bus slid to this location and collided with the first responders and injured persons on the ground.”

Vice President Fuat Oktay stated that the emergency personnel and journalists had “died in the course of duty.”