Death toll rose to 8 in the mine blast in Sirnak province in southeastern Turkey last week when non-commissioned officer Mesut Uzun died in the hospital on Thursday, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

Uzun, who was seriously injured in the blast on May 24, died at Ankara's Gulhane Military Medical Academy, according to Anatolia.

A land-mine planted by the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), went off in Bestler Dereler region in Sirnak last Thursday as military troops from the Third Brigade Command were patrolling in the area.

Five soldiers were killed in the blast instantly, said Anatolia, adding that three soldiers who were seriously injured in the attack, died in hospital.

On May 22, a suicide bomb blast ripped through a crowded shopping center in the Ulus district of Turkish capital Ankara, killing seven, including the bomber, and injuring about 100 others. Officials believed the PKK was behind the attack.

PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.

The intensity of the fighting eased after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured and imprisoned in 1999, but flared up again in recent years.

Source: Xinhua