State blockade of the Sur district of Diyarbakir (Amed) is on its 5th day. Not only the residents of Sur, but surrounding neighborhoods are on the street protesting Turkish state atrocities. Turkish military forces together with the police escalated their assaults on civilian neighborhoods in Sur as soon as the curfew went into effect. This has been the tactic of the Turkish forces in their planned attacks on the Kurdish citizens. First comes the curfew, and then comes the attacks in the night. Usually the police first blow up the electrical transformers on the streets to send the neighborhood into darkness without power. Then under the cover of darkness the police vehicles move in and as they spray the residential homes with machine gun fire, “special forces” and militarized police raid homes and usually kill anybody if there is any kind of question from the unarmed people.

The only protection people have against these attacks is digging trenches intended to keep out the machine gun mounted police vehicles. However, now the Turkish state brings in armored heavy machinery to fill the street trenches before they attack a street or neighborhood. This escalated the clashes more because as the next defensive action, the people of Diyarbakir started placing mines in the trenches.

The same scenario played out in the Sur district of Diyarbakir (Amed in Kurdish). After 5 days of strict curfew where Kurdish people were confined to their homes 24 hours a day last morning also saw the military attack on homes. After fierce gun battles started late in the evening that lasted hours, there seemed to be a relative quiet before sunrise.

However with the sunrise the people who had had enough of this unjustified war against them took it to the streets of Sur in protest. Police immediately attacked the protesters which led to the heavy clashes in the neighborhoods of Hasirli and Kursunlu Cami.

JINHA news agency reports a house fire that started during the clashes. Residents helped put out the fire later in the day.

There are 3 reported deaths and 25 wounded in the last 5 days. The police do not allow the wounded to be taken to the hospitals so the injured people are being taken care in the homes and by the residents.

In the neighborhood of Hasirli, a drone operated by the cops to spy on the residents was shot down.

When crowds gathered in front of the train station to march towards Sur for protest and solidarity with the Sur residents the police attacked the crowd with water cannons and tear gas. The marching thousands pushed back the police assault and clashes started. Fights between the police and the special forces on the one side and the people on the other spread quickly to surrounding streets. After gathering and staging a sit-in, the crowd now rushed from the side streets to reach the people of Sur surrounded by the Turkish forces. Police brought in the armored carriers and assault vehicles to counter the thousands pushing towards Sur and several big explosions could be heard.

Protesting the Turkish presence and the police assault the merchants closed their shops throughout Diyarbakir. The clashes as of this report had spread to the rest of the city and police called in additional armed vehicles. The machine gun mounted military vehicles are parked at the corners of the streets where clashes had taken place earlier. Where the resisting people were able to push the police back, the traffic has been stopped and the police is trying to empty the streets.

In the city of Nusaybin, the police have killed two residents. This city is now under its 5th curfew. An armored police vehicle opened fire on the civilians yesterday wounding 4 people. Two of the wounded later lost their lives on the scene.

When the neighbors rushed to help the wounded they too were greeted with police fire. As they have done elsewhere the police does not allow any help to reach the wounded. Ambulances are not allowed to enter the neighborhoods and if they manage to get in, the Turkish police open fire targeting the ambulance drivers or the medical personnel.

In the Abdulkadirpasha neighborhood in Nusaybin, when the police and the special forces tried entering the streets a mine hidden in a street trench exploded and wounded the 6 police officers in an armed police vehicle.

Sendika.Org News (Mehmet Bayram)