Published by KOMNEWS on 19 February 2017
Korukoy village in Nusaybin’s Kurdish region, southeast Turkey has been under siege since 9 February 2017
The siege of Kurdish village Korukoy in Turkey’s southeastern Nusaybin district continues. According to reports 39 people have been detained, two disappeared and three killed.
Several women who were able to leave the village to be taken to hospital spoke to reporters about developments in the area, which has been under siege for nine days.
Necla Dogan told Sujin news outlet that security forces had used her house as headquarters against her will.
“Special forces stormed our house at night,” Dogan said. “They took us outside and said we were seeing and feeding terrorists. They said they would give me money if I told them where the terrorists were and that they would kill my 14-year old daughter if I didn’t comply.” Necla said her father took her to the hospital. “Now my two daughters, 12 and 14 years old, are left in the house with the military.”
Another woman who left with an ambulance, Fesla Dogan, said she witnessed security forces beat her husband when they entered her house on the fourth day of the curfew. Her 10-year old daughter is still in the village, she said. “We are illiterate but they forced us to sign some papers and threatened to blow us up if we talked. They also forced me to take off all my clothes.”
A woman from the village that wanted to remain anonymous spoke to Haberdar news outlet from the city of Mardin saying that she had been unable to receive any news from the village for days.
“When I left the village on Monday, there had been no shooting, nothing. They were just searching the houses and arrested some people. When I left the village, they had arrested 16 people and no house had been set on fire,” the woman said.
“Although I don’t know the exact numbers , we now hear that 40 people have been arrested. I would lie if I said there were PKK fighters in the village,” the woman said.
According to the report she was in the village until the third day of curfews but too afraid to leave the house. She was finally able to leave in order to take her uncle’s daughter to the hospital as she was coughing blood. “There is a lot of information circulating on social media but to be honest, there is a lot of disinformation and we are unable to get the real facts. The village has been isolated and completely cut off from the outside.”
Reporter Aynur Inedi told Kom News she was trying to enter the village together with Kurdish officials and People’s Democratic Party (HDP) members of parliament but that they had been denied access since Saturday afternoon by security forces.
Speaking to reporters, Kurdish Democratic Society Congress (DTK) co-chair Leyla Guven said a military official told them that an operation was ongoing in the area and that there was a security risk so they wouldn’t be allowed into the village.
“We went to a village nearby but weren’t allowed to stay there either,” Guven continued, “so we went to a third village where we found someone who had escaped from Korukoy two days ago. This person told us harrowing things. People are being gathered in the village square and tortured. There are around 500 people in the village and they are not being let out. They have no water, no wood to burn and their animals are perishing.”
Answering a question on whether there were PKK militants in the village Guven responded:
“We heard of these rumours from the Turkish media. Even if this were true the nature of the operation shouldn’t be this. 500 people should not be punished and left face-to-face with hunger and thirst. If the same thing had happened in western Turkey would they punish the whole village? But in Kurdistan they are doing this very easily. In Kurdistan human rights and rule of law is suspended during state of emergency. The people don’t deserve this treatment.”
Turkish officials have said two Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants were killed in the village.
Photos emerged on Twitter on Friday allegedly showing a charred corpse and two other bloodied bodies shot to death in the village. Two videos showing burning houses also went viral in the same hours.
Activists launched the Twitter hashtag #NusaybindeKatliamVar (There is a massacre in Nusaybin) which trended in Turkey on Sunday evening.
