Turkey troops kill two; arrest, 'torture' 40 in Kurdish village

The HDP cited footage and pictures that have appeared on social media, purportedly showing the burning of two houses and Turkish soldiers posing with unidentified dead bodies while making racist gestures.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – During the past week, Turkish troops killed at least two people and arrested 40 others in a village under curfew in the Kurdish province of Mardin amid allegations of torture.

Authorities declared the indefinite curfew in the Xeraba Bava and nine other villages of the Nusaybin district near the border with Syria on Feb. 11.

Regarding the curfew, the authorities cited the presence of outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters, “collaborators,” their sanctuaries, and weapons storages.

Since then, the Internet and phone lines, as well as electricity, have been cut off in the village.

There was no direct communication with over 500 residents, according to a Sunday press release by the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) about the situation in the village.

HDP said Turkish troops had confiscated villagers’ cell phones, put them all in a house, as allegations of torture and extrajudicial killings emerged.

The release cited footage and pictures that have appeared on social media, purportedly showing the burning of two houses and Turkish soldiers posing with unidentified dead bodies while making racist gestures.

The central government-appointed Governor’s Office in Mardin on Friday declared the killing of two “high-ranking” PKK fighters.

Moreover, the Governor’s office claimed one of them was a close aid to the group’s co-founder and commander-in-chief Murat Karayilan who operates from mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region.

Clashes with PKK fighters wounded at least one Turkish soldier and police, reported the state-funded Anadolu agency.

The army did not allow an HDP delegation made up of lawmakers to visit the village under blockade on the weekend, said Kurdistan24’s bureau in the neighboring Diyarbakir Province.

According to the Kurdish Firat news agency, troops killed three people and tortured 39 others before arresting them.

Nusaybin and its environs have been one of the centers of months-long curfews and ensuing clashes between Kurdish fighters and Turkish troops that saw hundreds killed after a two-years-held ceasefire collapsed in mid-2015.

 

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany