Kurd Genocide
Over 20 injured people have been trapped in a basement for over a week in the Cizre district of Turkey’s Sirnak Province, where the Turkish military is fighting Kurdish militants. Reports say ambulances have been denied access and six people have died.
Faysal Sariyildiz, Sirnak deputy of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third biggest in the Turkish parliament, told the Cihan news agency on Saturday that 31 people had been trapped in a basement of a building in the Kurdish town of Cizre for over a week, with 6 already succumbing to their injuries.
On Friday, Sariyildiz told the German dpa news agency that the death toll was rising almost daily, as ambulances dispatched to help those trapped had been denied access on 11 separate occasions.
“The wounded are confined in a tight space along with those who have died,” Sariyildiz told the agency.
Nedim Turfent, English news editor for the Dicle News Agency, told RT that seven of the wounded have died and 15 others are suffering from injuries, “some in critical condition.”
“No news has been received from the basement since yesterday afternoon. Dozens of people including women and children remain trapped,” he said. “The wounded are waiting to die without any available means,” he said, adding that there is lack of water or other “basic means to survive.”
HDP’s Sariyildiz has been in contact with the people in basement via text and has been updating his Twitter with the names of the trapped Kurds and posting photos of the injured.
Some HDP members went on a hunger strike on Thursday to protest the actions of the Turkish government, which has imposed curfews and cut off passage to medics. Cizre has been under curfew for the past six weeks.
On Sunday, a group of volunteer medical workers from the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) and the Trade Union of Public Employees in Health and Social Services (SES) were denied entry to the district.
A physician from the group told the media that the volunteers had been denied entry to the area because they lacked an official document.
“We were denied entry despite explaining to them that the prevention was in violation of the Geneva Conventions, of which Turkey is a signatory, and that vehicles and volunteer personnel carrying the symbol of the Red Cross need to be allowed into conflict zones,” Dr. Vahhac Alp said, as quoted by the Hurriyet Daily.