Turkish police and special forces have staged a ninth consecutive day of attacks on Silvan, a Kurdish district in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, killing a number of people, according to local officials
Turkish police and special forces have staged a ninth consecutive day of attacks on Silvan, a Kurdish district in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, killing a number of people, according to local officials
Turkish police and special forces have staged a ninth consecutive day of attacks on Silvan, a Kurdish district in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, killing a number of people, according to local officials.
Security forces launched a new operation on the morning of 11 November after failing to break the resistance of residents, bombarding the neighborhoods of Tekel, Konak and Mescit from the air. The Dicle News Agency (DİHA) reported a number of dead and wounded, but the inability of reporters to enter the besieged area meant the number of dead and injured could not be confirmed.
“They’re firing mortars from helicopters. We’ve received news from our friends in the neighborhood that there are dead and wounded,” said Zuhal Tekiner, Silvan’s deputy co-mayor from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). “Permission is not being granted to ambulances to collect the dead and injured. The injured must be treated at once. A humanitarian corridor must be opened immediately and the injured must be removed. All NGOs and human rights groups must come to Silvan immediately.”
“The clashes are spreading to the entire district. The sounds of gunshots are continuing. They are murdering our people; they’re randomly opening fire on the streets,” said HDP Batman Deputy Mehmet Ali Aslan. “It’s not just Silvan residents who are being murdered, it’s humanity. Everyone needs to speak up about this.”
“Soldiers and police have destroyed a mosque in Mescit Neighborhood. A hundred of us have crammed in somewhere [for safety]. They’re opening fire with heavy weapons on us. There are injured here. People don’t have bread or water,” HDP Diyarbakır Deputy Sibel Yiğitalp told MedNûçe news channel.
One police officer was also killed in the evening during a clash with purported members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The HDP and its sister party, the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), sent a delegation to Silvan for observations that received a briefing from the Silvan mayor’s office and the police. The delegation attempted to negotiate the safety of HDP parliamentarians in the town who have allegedly been directly targeted by security forces.
A separate delegation consisting of HDP and DBP coming from the city of Diyarbakir reached Silvan for further observations.
Selahattin Demirtaş, the co-chair of HDP, said the battle had now become urban warfare and that the people of Silvan were struggling for their free future and the democratic self-rule.
“There’s no police operation there ‘to provide public order.’ There is urban warfare that now includes the army,” he said.
“We are ready to resist together with our people,” Demirtas said, adding that the HDP supported the resistance with the demand of self-rule.
Thousands of people in other Kurdish population centers, including Ankara, İstanbul, Adana, Urfa, Van, Ağrı, Batman, Mardin, Silopi, İdil all took to the streets to demonstrate against the Turkish assault and show their solidarity with the people of Silvan.
“We are facing a mentality that thinks they can get any result by tanks and artillery,” said HDP group vice chair İdris Baluken as HDP representatives from other cities headed to Silvan.
Accompanying the military operations from the air and land, sharp shooters were deployed to the rooftops, targeting civilians that left their homes. Police also made announcements from armored vehicles, threatening all those that left their homes that they would be shot on sight.
DİHA reported that around noon the Turkish forces aerially bombed a town square where elected Kurdish officials from the HDP and a crowd were gathering. People rushed to a nearby mosque to take cover. No exact number of dead or wounded was available at the time of writing.
“They are bombing the Tekel neighborhood that we are in. They have come here to destroy all civilians,” HDP representative Ayşe Acar Başaran said in a tweet. “We expect our people to come here to Silvan for solidarity. The state should understand one thing very clearly, we are here to gladly give our lives, but we will not take a single step back from our honorable resistance. We have a wounded person with us, but they are not allowing the ambulance to get through to take him to the hospital. We cannot get him out due to the aerial bombing. They have decided to shoot down any living being. The people are defending their right to self-rule.”
Sendika.org news (Mehmet Bayram)
