Aerial view of Cizre and Tigris, Turkey. Wikicommons/Rahman Abubakr. Some rights rserved.Everything is happening
before our very eyes!
The Kurdish cities of Turkey have been under an
unlawful siege and curfew for months. Today, it has been 49 days for Cizre and
61 days for Diyarbakir-Surici since the curfew was declared. People suffer from
lack of water, and from hunger. Beneath the roar of tanks, artillery fire and
bullets, people took to sheltering in their basements. Thousands of people who
are living under this siege can’t reach health or education services. The
patients and the wounded can’t reach hospitals.
After a howitzer attack on one house in Cizre, people
took shelter in the basement. Wounded among
them, people have been fighting for their lives for 8 days in this basement. Six out of 25 wounded, have lost
their lives. And we weren’t able to send an ambulance.
Whenever the ambulance arrives, they end up opening
fire at the vehicle. Government officials try to make the public believe their nonsense
statements: there might not be wounded
people in the basement after all! Later on they make a statement alleging that
when the ambulances went there, it was the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth
Movement (YDG-H) who opened fire. Nobody
asks who those are in the basement, or why the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth
Movement (YDG-H) would open fıre on an ambulance which comes to pick up those
wounded people. Government always lies
through its teeth. However, what Government should do is quite simple. Let them
recall their special
teams, which pick people off randomly. Then the mothers of Cizre, who are
beating their breasts just a few hundred metres away, can take their children away
from the firefight without an ambulance helping them.
There isn’t even water for the wounded
Only a few hundred metres away from the wounded,
mothers strive to hear from their children. A mother’s cry for Mehmet Yavuzel,
one of the wounded, and a member of the Democratic Party of Regions (DBP0,
reached me via social media. She heard her son’s voice on TV; he was one of the
wounded waiting for an ambulance for 8 days. She beats her chest in despair,
and cries out “Let me sacrifice myself for all of you.”
We are face to face with a mentality that insults,
distorts the facts, lies, and massacres its people, destroys their graves, and even
tortures dead bodies whenever possible.
In that basement, there are people who only want some
water to drink. We are talking about one glass of water! Whoever they are, these
people at death’s gate. “I say water Heval (my friend), water!”
We have taken a journey from an old slogan, “There is
no Kurdish issue”, to “There is no water for Kurds” now.
Our children are in a basement without water!
Our children are wounded in a basement!
Our children are hopeless in a basement!
Our children are in a basement, waiting for us to go and
treat their wounds.
Our children are about to die in a basement!
Our children only want a glass of water in a basement!
Writing this message, I receive news about a fifteen
year old, Sultan Irmak, who has just died of his wounds there. A child dying
there in agony and crying for water.
We have all watched this violence and are still
watching. Those, who have the power, are defeated… They created a society the
way they wanted it to be. Fear, apathy, and unfairness surround the people. We
fail to break the curfew, which has lasted more than 60 days in my homeland,
Sur. We have been unable to retrieve the bodies of the youngsters who were left
on the ground for days. We weren’t able to get through enough demands for Cizre
for instance; we weren’t able to stand the barrage of tankfire and guns to
reach that basement. And, we weren’t able to pull away the wounded from that
basement of inhumanity.
Kurdish people find themselves face to face with an injustice
without end. The government carries on warfare not only with its tanks and guns
but also with a vicious psychological war by every means available. There, dead
bodies are left on the ground; we watch the wounded approaching ever nearer death
as in a scene from a movie. Graveyards are bombed, dead bodies are tortured and
dismembered. People are forced to migrate. Mothers can’t provide even water for
their children. And our country maintains a total silence under these
conditions.
Shame on all of us!
In those basements, not just those youngsters’ hearts,
but our homeland’s heart is buried.
Cizre, don’t forgive us.
