Kurdish families on hunger strike to bury their dead

Families of four people killed in clashes between the Turkish Army and PKK affiliates have been on a hunger strike to receive their children's bodies in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir since the beginning of the New Year.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (K24) - Families of four people killed in clashes between the Turkish Army and Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) affiliates have been on a hunger strike to receive their children's bodies in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir since the beginning of the New Year.

Parents of alleged fighters Isa Oran, Mesud Seviktek, Ramazan Ogun, and a civilian believed uninvolved in the fighting, Rozerin Cukur (17), are staging a hunger strike at the Diyarbakir branch of Human Rights Association of Turkey, demanding authorities let them have their children's bodies for burial. They also started a petition to that end.

The bodies of Oran, Seviktek, and Ogun --killed on December 23, 2015--and Cukur, killed last Friday, are all currently lying on the destroyed streets of the central Sur district of Diyarbakir where a curfew with intermittent breaks, entered its forty-first day on Monday.

Rozerin's father, Mustafa Cukur said he joined other families after failing to retrieve her body for three days.

"When she heard that the curfew was [temporarily] removed for one day she went to visit a friend of hers in Sur. But the curfew was shortly reimposed, and we did not hear from her again," Cukur said, adding that the family learned of Rozerin's death from social media.

"I will continue the hunger strike until we get her body," a grieving Cukur stated.

A parliamentarian from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), Huda Kaya joined a separate gathering in front of the Diyarbakir municipality in support of the families with dozens of Kurdish imams and local Muslim religious leaders and slammed authorities for not letting the parents retrieve their children's dead bodies.

Kaya, who represents Istanbul in the Turkish Parliament said, "he who calls himself Muslim cannot be that savage, cannot let dead bodies remain unburied for days."

Criticising the government's failure in solving the Turkish - Kurdish conflict politically, she asked, "why does [the Turkish government and President] hear about [what is happening] Gaza and Palestine, but [they do not hear about] North Kurdistan [southeast Turkey]? The elderly, children, and women are killed. Why do they not hear the Kurds?"

Meanwhile, in the city of Sirnak (Sirnex), a group of local politicians from the HDP and Democratic Regions' Party (DBP) retrieved the snow-covered bodies of two unidentified people, after lying on the ground for eight days in a neighbourhood where clashes between Turkish soldiers and PKK affiliates are continuing.

The fighting in Kurdish towns and areas have claimed the lives of some 400 Kurdish fighters, according to the Turkish Army, whereas the PKK says it has killed more than 200 Turkish soldiers and police officers since a ceasefire and peace talks collapsed in mid-2015.

But the civilians bear the brunt of the conflict in the towns of Cizre and, Silopi in Sirnak Province and Diyarbakir's historic Sur district, where thousands of people have left their homes.

According to human rights organisations, more than 160 civilians have been killed in curfew-hit towns.

(Zelal Onen and Hesen Kako reported from Diyarbakir)