Kurdish on the curriculum in Armenia for new school year

October 5, 2016 By administrator

kurdish-armenian-schools ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Armenian school curriculum now includes studies in the Kurdish language, according to the editor-in-chief of the oldest Kurdish newspaper.

“In areas where Kurds are living in Armenia, Kurdish children can study in the Kurdish language,” said Titale Kerem, editor-in-chief of Riya Taze. “As part of preparations for the new school year, several Kurdish books, including literature for all grades, have been printed.”
Alixan Mame, head of the Armenia Writers Union, told Armenpress that at least 13 Kurdish books for grade one through twelve have been printed, but they lack teachers.

“Such textbooks have not been published in the history of the Kurdish people. Thirteen textbooks were published. A chance was given in Armenia to publish textbooks with a unique syllabus and scientific formulation. This is a really historical event in the Kurdish people’s life,” said Mame.

The books have been printed by Spika publication house, sponsored by the Armenian government.

Kurdish and the Yezidi language ezdiki, are both already taught at the university level in Armenia.

An estimated 3,000,000 people live in Armenia, including approximately 40,000 Yezidis living in western parts of the country.

The Yezidis arrived as refugees from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century and are the largest minority in the mainly Christian country. The community is mostly composed of Yezidis from Turkey who settled in Transcaucasia – present day Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

Riya Taze is the longest-running Kurdish newspaper. It was founded in Armenia in 1932. There is also a Kurdish radio station broadcasting from the capital of Armenia, Yerevan.

Kurdish children textbooks in Armenia

September 27, 2016 By administrator

By Varduhi Balyan

Students in the regions densely populated by Kurds have textbooks in Kurdish now. Kurdish students in 1st to 12th grades will receive education in their mother tongue.

Kurdish children in Armenia will be able to learn their culture and mother tongue thanks to newly-published textbooks in Kurdish. Poet Alixane Mame, the head of Kurdish Writers Department of the Writer Union of Armenia, is the author of the textbooks in Kurdish. Speaking to Armenpress, Mame noted the historical and scientific significance of these textbooks: “In Kurdish history, there haven’t been any textbooks as extensive as these. We published 13 textbooks. In Armenia, we were able to publish these books, after the scientific studies sponsored by the state. This is a historical event for Kurdish people.” Mame also stated that there is not enough teacher who can teach in Kurdish in Armenia and they are working on it.

In the Kurdish textbooks, Kurdish literary works are compiled in accordance with the historical chronology.

The first Kurdish Zoroastrian temple opened in Iraqi Kurdistan

September 22, 2016 By administrator

SULAIMANI, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— The Zoroastrians opened their first official temple in the Kurdish city of Sulaimani in Iraqi Kurdistan on Wednesday. They lit a fire and played the frame drum or daf to celebrate the occasion, two elements of their rituals.

Zoroastrians in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region hope that their first official temple in the region will provide the right environment to “reintroduce” Kurds to their ancestral religion.

Awat Hussamaddin Tayib, the chief of the followers of the Zoroastrians in Iraqi Kurdistan—she calls it Bashur, Southern Kurdistan, in Kurdish—told Rudaw English that dozens of Kurdish people are returning to Zoroastrianism, but that some keep it secret out of fear.

Zoroastrianism was a dominant religion in the region that was largely lost following two major historical military campaigns, Tayib explained, one during the time of Alexander the Great and the other during the Islamic campaign which brought much of present-day Middle East under Islamic rule in the seventh century.

Today, some followers of Zoroastrianism are afraid to publicly practice their religion.

The war against the Islamic State, Tayib said, is on the Kurdistan border. She fears that some Islamists might not be happy about the rise of her religion.

Tayib takes pride in her religion because she can, like her male counterpart, run the affairs of her fellow Zoroastrians “without any gender discrimination.” In our religion, she explained, we only talk about human beings, and humans by nature do not recognize gender roles.

Tayib, who was living in Europe until four years ago, is the representative of the Zoroastrians at the Kurdistan Region’s ministry of religious affairs. She assumed the position after Zoroastrians received official recognition in 2015.

Zoroastrianism is an ancient religion which grew to popularity in present-day Iran and some parts of Iraq and then spread to the rest of the world.

Zoroastrians are best known by their religious motto “Good Thoughts, Good Acts, and Good Deeds”. They believe in one God, that the world is divided between the good, represented by fire or light in their rituals, and the devil, and a day of judgement.

Many of its adherents in Kurdistan believe the founder of the religion, Zoroaster or Zardasht as it is called in Kurdish, was a Kurd and he spoke a variation of Kurdish language called Avesta.

Kurdish Zoroastrians believe that the Kurdish dialect of Hawrami, still widely spoken in Kurdish areas in Iran and Iraq, has many similarities to the ancient language.

Hawramis believe that the language has remained largely intact due to the limited contact they had with the outside world. Their mountainous areas kept them safe from foreign rule for much of their history.

Tayib said Avesta language is faced with extinction. She does not speak the language but, in an effort to preserve the language, she and members of her congregation are studying it.

Tayib could not give an exact number of Zoroastrians in the Kurdistan Region as some followers do so only secret for “their own safety or social considerations,” but she estimated it could be in the hundreds of thousands.

A 2006 report by the New York Times put the number of Zoroastrians worldwide at 190,000 at the most.

Iraqi Kurdistan: Kurdish Journalist Abducted, Killed, repeated interrogations by the KRG’s

August 26, 2016 By administrator

Wedad Hussein Ali, 28, a Kurdish journalist who was abducted in Dohuk on August 13, 2016 and later found dead.
© 2016 Private

Threatened by Security Forces Over His Reporting

(Dohuk) – An Iraqi Kurdish journalist who had been threatened by security services was abducted and found dead on August 13, 2016. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) should ensure a prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation into the killing of Wedad Hussein Ali, 28, who was allegedly affiliated with the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Witnesses described his apparent kidnapping by unknown assailants, who claimed to be Kurdish security forces, following repeated interrogations by the KRG’s Asayish political police forces over the past 12 months about his writings critical of Kurdish authorities.

“The KRG should provide serious answers about how it came to be that this journalist was kidnapped and killed in broad daylight, following repeated interrogations by Asayish forces,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “He is one of dozens of journalists in KRG territory who have been killed, beaten, detained, or harassed.”

In 2015, the METRO Center to Defend the Rights of Journalists, a Kurdistan journalism rights advocacy group, documented 145 cases of attacks on journalists that year including arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and unlawful killing. In 2011, following large public protests in the region, journalists faced attacks and threats, including from the security forces. In March 2011, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 20 journalists, who said that security forces and their proxies routinely threatened, arbitrarily arrested, beat, and harassed journalists, and confiscated and destroyed their equipment.

Tariq Hussein Ali, 40, told Human Rights Watch that his brother Wedad was an accredited journalist for the pro-PKK RojNews, and also worked in the cultural office of the Dohuk governorate, part of Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).

Two of Wedad Hussein Ali’s friends told Human Rights Watch that he had spent time in PKK camps two years ago, though not as a fighter. Over the last months, Asayish officers had taken Wedad in for questioning three times about his role supporting the PKK and his work as a journalist.

One of his friends said he saw a text message with a death threat on Wedad’s phone. Wedad told him the threat came from a man who he believed worked for Parastin, intelligence forces for the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the governing parties in the region.

Tariq Hussein Ali said that his brother told him in July that the Asayish had detained him and ordered him either to leave the paper or provide intelligence from inside the publication. “Otherwise we will stop you,” his brother said they threatened. Tariq Hussein Ali said his brother said he had been beaten and that his ribs and shoulders were covered in dark bruises and he could not walk for 10 days after the interrogation.

Wedad ignored their threats and continued his work, his brother said, including publishing articles and Facebook posts alleging corruption within the KRG. He also wrote Facebook posts criticizing Kurdistan Democratic Party forces for abandoning the Yezidi community when the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, took over the area where they lived, killing and abducting thousands of Yezidis. Another friend said that the journalist had told him that he was in danger if he stayed in the Dohuk area.

On August 13, at 8:45 a.m., Wedad Hussein Ali dropped another brother, Sardar, 35, at the construction site where he worked near a marketplace in the Malta neighborhood of Dohuk. Sardar Hussein Ali said that 15 minutes later, he saw large crowds gathering and police cars arriving at the marketplace. He saw his brother’s empty car in the middle of the road.

A police officer told him that unidentified men had detained his brother. Another man told him he saw two unmarked cars cut off his brother’s car, and that three men inside had dragged his brother out, hooded him, forced him into one of the cars at gunpoint, and drove off in the direction of the highway. The witness said the men told Wedad they were security forces, arresting him because he had “an accident with children.” The witness said he noted the make and license numbers of both cars.

Sardar Hussein Ali said that police officers took him and the witness to the police station, questioned them and another brother, Darban, who joined them, and promised to view footage from security cameras in the shop the witness had left before the abduction. The witness later posted the details of what he had seen on Facebook, a screenshot of which Human Rights Watch reviewed. The post began with, “After I post this, maybe someone will find my body in the city street.” Four days later the witness took down the post. The Hussein Ali family said that since then his profile has been inactive and they have tried unsuccessfully to contact him.

At about 10:45 a.m., as the brothers were driving home, Darban Hussein Ali said, a policeman he knows called him to say that someone from his family was at the Azadi Hospital in Dohuk. The family went to the hospital and found Wedad’s body in the morgue. He said they asked the investigative judge in the hospital how the body got there and were told that police from Semmel, a city west of Dohuk, found it dumped on the side of the road.

Photographs of Wedad’s body, taken by his family at the morgue, that Human Rights Watch reviewed, show lacerations, abrasions, and contusions of the head, torso, and extremities. The pattern of bruising and lesions suggests they may have been caused by a blunt long cylindrical object, such as a bat or baton, a doctor who reviewed the photos said.

A senior Semmel police officer told Human Rights Watch on August 18 that they were looking into the case but had no update on the progress of the investigation.

At least two other journalists have been murdered in the KRI. Kawa Garmiani, from the town of Kalar, was shot dead on December 5, 2013, after threatening to expose corruption. Garmiani’s lawyer said that in 2014, a court sentenced Twana Khalifa, who was allegedly affiliated with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan political party, to death for Garmiani’s murder, but an appellate court reduced the sentence to life in prison. Soran Mama Hama, a journalist in Kirkuk, was killed on July 21, 2008, after receiving threats about a report he planned to publish on alleged police complicity in the city’s sex work. No one has been arrested for his death.

A number of journalists, including Sherwan Sherwan and Sabah al-Atrushi, are facing prosecution for their reporting. Isa Barzani, a retired fighter for the Kurdish Peshmerga security forces, whose Facebook posts were critical of President Masoud Barzani, was arrested on August 4, 2015, by the Parastin and held for six months, then released and barred from travelling outside the KRI.

The KRG should establish an independent investigation into Wedad Hussein Ali’s death, particularly in light of the implication of Kurdish security forces. Police should immediately release the video showing his kidnapping, as well as the report of the police who allegedly found his body.

“The authorities’ failure to prevent attacks on journalists not only denies them justice, but has a chilling effect on what they can report,” Whitson said. “The authorities should show they are actively and aggressively hunting for the culprits of this crime, and not just promising yet another bottomless investigation.”

Sarah Leah Whitson

Middle East director at Human Rights Watch

Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/25/iraqi-kurdistan-kurdish-journalist-abducted-killed

Terrorist State of Turkey indicts Kurdish political leaders “Erdogan Scorched earth policies continue”

August 12, 2016 By administrator

Turkish prosecutors have indicted leading figures in the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). They stand accused of spreading “terrorist group propaganda” as deadly violence in the Kurdish southeast continues.

Prosecutors in Istanbul indicted HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtas and filmmaker and Istanbul MP Sirri Sureyya Onder on Friday, for crimes that carry up to five-year prison terms.

The indictments come a day after a police raid on an HDP branch office that authorities said targeted sympathizers of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The indictment specifically accuses Demirtas and Onder of praising the PKK’s imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan in speeches they made in 2013. The addresses were made when a peace process between the PKK’s leader and Turkey was underway.

The 30-month ceasefire subsequently collapsed with daily casualties resuming in some of the worst urban fighting in years with entire city blocks razed by the Turkish military and thousands of civilians left for weeks without electricity, water and medical care.

President Tayyip Erdogan accuses the HDP of being the political wing of the outlawed PKK and successfully pushed for parliament to lift the immunity of many opposition MPs in May.

The HDP has denied links to the PKK but admits that its political base draws upon sympathizers with the Kurdish guerilla movement. Demirtas told his parliamentary group this week that the HDP is the only opposition party that dares challenge President Erdogan and his dominant Justice and Development Party (AKP).

“We are Turkey’s only opposition party,” Demirtas said Tuesday, the Iraqi Kurdish news agency Rudaw reported. “The people have only one hope.”

Erdogan’s popularity soars in post-coup environment

A recent survey of more than 1,200 people conducted two weeks ago found Erdogan’s approval rating had risen to nearly 68 percent – a jump of 21 percentage points over last year, the Ankara-based Metropoll research company said.

A government-sponsored pro-democracy rally last Sunday that attracted more than a million people excluded the HDP, the country’s third largest political party.

Demirtas has accused the AKP of exploiting people’s passions following the failed July 15 coup attempt for political purposes and failing to use the national unity to restart the stalled Kurdish peace initiative.

“On the one hand, our doors are open to reconciliation and peace. On the other hand, we will not remain silent against injustice and persecution,” Dermirtas said, according to Rudaw. “This is not a personal matter. The country is waiting for reconciliation and a political solution.”

Scorched earth policies continue

The PKK has fought a decades-long insurgency in the southeast seeking political autonomy and cultural and linguistic rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority. More than 40,000 people have been killed since 1984.

jar/kl (Reuters, AFP)

Kurdish Forces PKK trade deadly attacks with Turkish military in southeast of country

May 18, 2016 By administrator

0,,19255407_303,00 At least five soldiers and 10 rebels have died during intensified fighting in southeastern Turkey in the past 48 hours. The two sides traded roadside bombings and airstrikes, as both sides dig in for a prolonged fight.

Fighting in southeast Turkey is intensifying as both the Turkish army and rebel Kurdish fighters claimed deadly attacks on Wednesday.

Kurdish militants killed four Turkish soldiers and injured nine more – four of them seriously – when a roadside bomb exploded as their military convoy drove past.

Turkey-PKK conflict: Clashes in southeast

The attack by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) occurred in southeast Turkey, near the Iraqi border. The Turkish army is responding with additional ground troops backed by helicopters to the area.

Shortly after news of the PKK attack, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported that Turkish fighter jets had killed 10 Kurdish rebels. Citing a military source, the Anadolu Agency reported Wednesday afternoon that the air strike occurred on Monday.

It is unclear why news of the Turkish attack took two days to filter out.

Deadly attacks in Hakkari province

Both attacks occurred in the southeastern province of Hakkari. The PKK attack on the Turkish soldiers occurred 45 miles (70 km) from the town of Semdinli, near the Iraqi border. It’s unclear where, exactly, the Turkish attack on the Kurdish rebels occurred.

Another statement put out by the Turkish army claims that its warplanes bombed arms depots, shelters and caves used by PKK rebels in the Daglica region in Hakkari province, as well as in northern Iraq.

Earlier in the day PKK rebels killed another Turkish soldier in the town of Nusaybin, near the Syrian border – 310 miles (500 km) away. The city of 100,000 people has been under a round-the-clock curfew for more than two months as security forces battle militants.

Turkey’s army has been battling the PKK in the southeast of the country since the collapse of a 2-year-old ceasefire in July 2015. The renewed fighting has claimed thousands of lives, including 450 Turkish soldiers.

Despite the high death toll suffered by security forces, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed no let up in the attacks.

The Turkish air force has also been launching frequent attacks on PKK positions in the mountainous region of northern Iraq, where the rebels have camps near the Turkish border.

The PKK has been waging an armed struggle against Turkey for more autonomy, if not outright independence, for more than 30 years. More than 40,000 people have been killed in one of Europe’s longest running insurgencies, which began in 1984.

bik/bw (Reuters, AP, AFP)

Kurdish MP Delivers Fiery Speech in Turkish Parliament

May 17, 2016 By administrator

harut-sassounian-small2 BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

In recent days, scathing speeches by Armenian and Kurdish deputies in the Turkish Parliament have been circulating on the internet. Last week, I presented the bold speech by Armenian MP Garo Paylan, delivered in April on the Armenian Genocide. This week, I would like to share with readers another fearless speech by Kurdish MP Gultan Kisanak. Even though this video was recently posted on the internet, her remarks were delivered in January 2012, shortly after the massacre of 35 young Kurdish civilians by the Turkish military in Roboski village, in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan!

Here are excerpts from her remarkable speech:

“…Those who don’t feel grief or shame for this situation and call themselves Muslim; those who don’t account for this situation, I question their humanity, their Islamic religion, and beliefs. Everyone is aware of what happened there. Is this how blinded your conscience has become? Is this your definition of humanity? …How do you manage to be so reckless and careless about the massacre of 35 people? How do you manage to be so inhumane? First, you are going to stand up and apologize; get upset. That is if you’re a human being as you claim to be. If you have a conscience! But you are not doing any of these things and instead acting as if a fly or a couple of chickens died by an ‘accidental operation.’ Shame on you! …For 90 years, this country has been using the terrorism excuse and committing many massacres…. You are trying to exterminate the Kurdish people! There is no terrorism! … The Military Chief of Staff of this country said: ‘We killed 40,000 people. We bombed the mountains many times. But still this issue does not end.’ You still cannot understand this truth! There are people there; and these people have rights! There are people there whose identity is being denied. There is a Kurdish issue. There is no terror issue….”

Using even harsher language, the Kurdish MP continued: “We are going to make you pay for this! Those who committed this massacre in broad daylight against these civilians and their mules, under the watchful eyes of the police, and those who think they can go around massacring 35 people and threaten the Kurds, will soon realize that they are the losers in these massacres! No one is afraid of death! Is there anything more than death? … How dare you impose your superiority on us! What more do you have over us? What do Turks have more than Kurds? What did Germans have more than Jews? …As equal citizens of this country, everyone is going to freely have their citizen’s rights with their true identity. Living side by side as free citizens with honor, we will never accept to be dishonored. Never! Even if you commit a thousand massacres, we will never accept it.”

When a pro-government MP tried to interrupt her speech, the Kurdish deputy shot back firmly: “Shut up! You have not even shown the strength to condemn the massacre. Shut up!”

Kisanak, who is now the co-Mayor of Diyarbekir, resumed her remarks: “Someone [Erdogan] is saying: ‘We’re not going to allow them [Kurds] to settle down in those areas.’ What ‘settling down?’ We have been here longer than a thousand years. We are deeply-rooted in those cliffs, rocks, Mount Cudi, Mount Gabar, Mount Agri [Ararat], and Mount Munzur. We are in their depths. We are here and have been here since the beginning of history and we are going to be here till the end! What ‘settling down’? We have been rooted here since the beginning. Our ancestors, grandfathers, and graves are all here. Our language, culture is here. What ‘settling down’ are you talking about? …They want to assimilate and annihilate the Kurdish population that has been living here for over thousands of years.”

Calling the killing of 35 young Kurds by the Turkish military “a crime against humanity,” Kisanak continued: “We are not going to let it go — till the end! We will be using all possible international human rights to make them account for their crimes. All those who commanded it, gave the orders, bombarded the place, shredded the bodies of those young children, will give an account to the community for it. Someone said, ‘there was no intent, there is no apology,’ but, ‘there is compensation.’ Be ashamed of yourselves. You know what they call this in our [Kurdish] culture? Blood money! If I have the money, I can commit a crime and pay the money to cover it up. So you think you can kill, then pay and then try to cover it up? Be ashamed of yourselves….”

The Speaker of the Parliament turned off the courageous Kurdish MP’s microphone, forcing her to end her speech!

Turkey Bombs Kurdish City Using Banned Phosphorous Munitions

May 8, 2016 By administrator

1039276004 The Turkish army shelled a district of the Nusaybin city in southern Turkey using munitions which are likely to contain the banned substance of phosphorus, according to a Kurdish source.

DAMASCUS (Sputnik) – The Turkish army used munitions containing phosphorus against the Kurdish-inhabited city of Nusaybin in the country’s south, a Kurdish source told Sputnik on Sunday.

“The Turkish army shelled a district of the Nusaybin city in southern Turkey using munitions which are likely to contain the banned substance of phosphorus,” the source said.

Nusaybin is located in the Mardin province, where two Turkish servicemen were killed during a raid against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), outlawed in the country, earlier in the day.

White phosphorus munitions are used in smoke and incendiary munitions. White phosphorus is not specifically banned, but the 1983 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons bans the use of incendiary weapons in indiscriminate attacks against civilians.

Severe clashes between the Turkish Armed Forces and PKK have been arising sporadically in Turkey since a July terror attack in the city of Suruc, which killed over 30 people, most of them Kurds. As Kurds killed two Turkish policemen in what they called a retaliation attack, Ankara declared a military campaign against the PKK, which it considers to be a terrorist organization.

The Kurds comprise ancient tribal groups, which are currently living in parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. In Turkey, Kurds represent the largest ethnic minority, and are striving to create their own independent state.

Terrorist State of Turkey strikes against Kurdish rebels, “After Ankara False-Flag operation”

March 14, 2016 By administrator

f56e6d44814ed9_56e6d44814f18.thumb Turkey has begun security operations against Kurdish rebels in the country’s south-east and in Iraq as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed a crackdown on terror after Sunday’s attack in Ankara that killed at least 37 people, BBC News reports.

According to the source, a curfew was declared in three towns in south-east Turkey, while warplanes struck PKK camps in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Eleven warplanes carried out air strikes on 18 targets including ammunition dumps and shelters in the Qandil and Gara sectors, the army said. The PKK (the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party) confirmed the attacks. Meanwhile curfews have been imposed in two mainly Kurdish towns in south-eastern Turkey, Yuksekova and Nusaybin, as security operations are carried out against Kurdish militants, Anadolu news agency reports.

As reported earlier, at least 37 people were killed and some 125 civilians wounded in a blast in the center of Ankara on Sunday. The car bomb blasted at a bus stop near one of Ankara’s central squares.
No group has admitted carrying out the attack in Ankara, yet government sources have cast suspicion on the PKK.

Earlier unnamed officials said the female bomber was a member of the PKK from the eastern town of Kars who joined the group in 2013.

Turkey: Hundreds of Kurd bodies ‘on hold’ in clash-hit Turkey town “Contentious Turkish crime against Humanity”

March 4, 2016 By administrator

n_96037_1 By Gülden Aydın – ŞIRNAK

The bodies of hundreds of people killed during clashes between Turkish security forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the southeastern town of Cizre are currently being held, with dozens of them rendered unidentifiable because of burns.

In large cold storages close to the Iraqi border crossing of Habur, the bodies of those killed are awaiting autopsies as well as identification, in laboratories set up by the Şırnak Forensic Institute alongside relatives and friends of the deceased.

The deceased were the casualties of a security operation against the Kurdish PKK in town centers, which led to fierce clashes in Cizre, a district in the southeastern Şırnak province, between Dec. 14, 2015, and Feb. 11.

Forensic institute officials are currently trying to identify the bodies, each stored in a numbered blue body bag. Officials have said the majority of bodies are burnt, making their identification almost impossible.

“We heard of his death on Feb. 13. Our father, Ahmet Tunç, went [to the forensic institute] to identify him, but failed to do so,” said Murat Tunç, the brother of 18-year-old Orhan Tunç who was killed in Cizre. The brother, uncle and several other relatives of the young man are still waiting for the body.

“Getting the body will not be enough. We will get a document from the attorney in Silopi for the funeral. Burial is prohibited in Cizre, so we will bury [the body of Orhan Tunç] in Şırnak,” he added. Silopi is another district in Şırnak that was kept under curfew for weeks.

“We want peace, we want an end to deaths,” said Halime, Orhan Tunç’s sister. “Do not let what happened in Cizre and Sur anywhere else, do not let the children become orphans.”

Local administration officials have yet to comment on the actual death toll, while the military said 666 “terrorists” were killed in Cizre. However, the Mesopotamia Association for Assistance to Families with Lost Relatives (MEYADER), a non-governmental organization that has unofficially recorded deaths in the southeastern town, put the total number at 167.

Families of the dead were allowed inside the laboratories for identification; however, only 30 of the bodies were reported to be identifiable. Forensic institute officials sent samples from the unidentifiable bodies and with family members’ samples to the Istanbul Forensic Institute for a series of large-scale DNA tests to help with the identification process.

Turkish authorities on Feb. 29 said the number of bodies waiting to be identified was 50. According to official stats, that number dropped to 44 on March 3.

After a weeks-long curfew that was imposed to prevent civilian casualties during military operations against terrorism, Cizre saw a row between the government and lawmakers from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) early February, with the latter accusing the Turkish administration of failing to provide health services for civilians trapped inside three basement apartments, one in Cizre’s Nur neighborhood and two others in the Cudi neighborhood.