Turkish security forces have killed 137 Kurds in Cizre town over the past week as part of the continuous crackdown on the Kurds in the country, Mehmet Yuksel, a representative of the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party to the United States, told Sputnik.
“In Cizre over the last week they killed 137 people,” Yuksel said.
One of the victims was Rohat Aktas, a young journalist who worked for the oldest Kurdish newspaper, he said.
According to Yuksel, Sur, a downtown district of Diyarbakir, the largest city of the Kurdish-populated southeast of Turkey, is now facing same atrocities.
“These were all Kurdish people, all civilians. They were all burned alive… Right now we are facing the same situation in Sur. Over 200 civilians were killed there. The situation is getting tougher day by day,” Yuksel said.
Diyarbakir is considered to be an unofficial capital of the Turkish Kurds. In recent months it has seen a number of attacks by Ankara as part of the security forces’ operation against Kurdish fighters allegedly linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Security forces are enforcing a curfew in the city and, according to Yuksel, set buildings on fire.
Various radical groups, including the Daesh, as well a lot of fighters hired by Turkey to fight Kurds have an easy access to refugee camps at the border with Syria, a representative of the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party to the United States said.
“Radical groups, Daesh [outlawed in Russia] easily have access to these camps. A lot of the fighters against the Kurds have refugee camps’ IDs,” Mehmet Yuksel said.
Turkey’s Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party is an alliance of several pro-Kurdish movements, founded in 2012, which places strong emphasis on minority rights.