- Sputnik International
World
Get the latest news from around the world, live coverage, off-beat stories, features and analysis.

Crashed, Killed and Ignored: Map of Ankara’s All-Out War Against Kurds

© AFP 2023 / YASIN AKGULA woman reacts while walking among the ruins of damaged buildings following heavy fighting between government troops and Kurdish fighters, on March 2, 2016 in the southeastern Turkey Kurdish town of Cizre, near the border with Syria and Iraq
A woman reacts while walking among the ruins of damaged buildings following heavy fighting between government troops and Kurdish fighters, on March 2, 2016 in the southeastern Turkey Kurdish town of Cizre, near the border with Syria and Iraq - Sputnik International
Subscribe
Some human rights activists claim the Turkish government is working to commit genocide on Kurdish civilians in southeastern Turkey under the pretext of the “anti-terrorist” operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), RT said.

RT dug deep into this case and showed the map of Ankara's offensive against Kurds. While Ankara continues to crash members of the PKK, some say the Turkish government is waging a full-scale war in southeastern Turkey seeking to get rid of all the Kurds living in the region.

© SputnikMap of Turkish military actions
Map of Turkish military actions - Sputnik International
Map of Turkish military actions

Turkish soldiers killed at least 60 people on February 8, 2016 in the town of Cizre. Other sources claim that government forces burned 150 Kurds alive that day. Meanwhile, the Turkish government keeps insisting that everyone who was killed during the bloodbath were terrorists, RT reported.

"I think thousands of civilians were killed in southeastern Turkey during the operation. Turkish forces are particularly brutal. They impose a curfew in an area and then shell it using heavy artillery. In the basement floor of one of the buildings [in Cizre] 150 people were killed in a fire," RT correspondent William Whiteman said.

​To obtain the information, Whiteman had to secretly travel to southeastern Turkey pretending to be a journalist of a Western news agency, as Ankara wouldn't allow RT and other Russian media to travel into the area.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during a meeting on the New Constitution at the Congresium in Ankara on January 28, 2016. - Sputnik International
EU Ignores Turkey's Butchering of Kurds if Erdogan Mops Up Migrants
The Turkish military claims they killed around 1,000 "terrorists" during the entire course of the "anti-terrorist" operation in the southeastern part of the country, while local sources say that in Cizre alone they killed 500-600 civilians.

According to Whiteman, most PKK fighters operate in mountainous areas around cities, while the army ends up killing civilians in cities in an attempt to fight militants.

"The Turkish government tries to portray everyone whom they kill as terrorists," the RT correspondent told Lenta.ru in an interview.

Kurdish Town Under Siege

In the town of Silopi, the Turkish Army used tanks when cleaning up the city. Authorities imposed a curfew in Silopi in December 2015, which was eventually lifted in January of 2016.

"Turkish tanks on the streets of Silopi in Kurdistan. They attack peaceful Kurdish civilians instead of [Daesh]," one of the city's residents wrote on Twitter.

​The city of Nusaybin has also been under the siege of Turkish forces. In November 2015, according to Ankara, several civilians died as a result of shell fragment wounds during a curfew. However, local residents said the army killed a few dozen civilians and a lot more were wounded.

When two weeks ago the government decided to extend the curfew in Nusaybin for an unknown period of time, most residents began to run for their lives and fled the city, RT said.

​The Turkish government also extended a curfew for an unknown period of time in the city of Yuksekova on March 13. All 70,000 residents are now stuck in the city, as Ankara ordered that nobody leaves or enters Yuksekova. Based on information on social media, the Turkish Army is already sending heavy military vehicles, RT said.

​The standoff began after a ceasefire between the Turkish government and the PKK broke down last summer. The PKK has been fighting for Kurdish independence from Ankara since 1984. The group, which the Turkish government considers as a terrorist organization, seeks to create a Kurdish state in parts of Turkey and Iraq.    

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала