Turkey teen talent show singer out of coma after shooting

A 19-year-old Turkish talent show contestant is out of a coma and communicating after she was shot in the head in an attack that shocked the country, doctors said Tuesday.

Mutlu Kaya was shot while she was at home in Kurdish-majority southeastern Diyarbakir province in May and had until now been in intensive care in the Diyarbakir hospital where she is being treated.

“She has been moved out of intensive care and into a private room. Her overall health is good. She has regained consciousness and is able to communicate with us,” her doctor Ulas Aktas told the Dogan news agency.

“At first she was answering with one word answers but now she can say 8-10 words. She is totally aware of what's going on around her,” the doctor said.

He added that the young woman was on a liquid diet and was being allowed to go out in a wheelchair once a day. She would however require months of physical therapy.

Kaya had been appearing on the show “Sesi Cok Guzel,” similar to “Britain’s Got Talent,” on the Turkish private channel Fox. She had been mentored by Sibel Can, one of Turkey’s best known folk pop singers.

Kaya’s ex-boyfriend, 26-year-old Veysel Ercan, was charged with attempted murder in May. Reports said Kaya was shot by an assailant who fired a bullet from the garden through the back window into the house.

The young woman had previously received death threats for appearing in the show and there were suggestions that the shooting was an act of revenge for her daring to appear in the contest.

The Kurdish-majority southeast of Turkey is known for its strongly conservative values, with women expected to perform a traditional role.

The attack on Kaya came at a time of intensifying anger in Turkey over the extent of violence against women, with hundreds of wives killed by their husbands every year.

According to the non-governmental Platform to Stop Violence Against Women, 286 women were murdered in Turkey in 2014 and 134 so far in 2015.