Cizre, Kurdish city battered by Turkey's crackdown

 "The curfew will be enforced again within 30 minutes," loudspeakers blasted over the battered streets of Cizre last week.

The announcement came as a shock to residents of this restive Kurdish-majority city. During an eight-day curfew that was lifted the previous Friday, 32 Kurdish fighters were killed, according to government officials - though Kurdish sources pegged the death toll at 21 civilians. The Turkey-based human rights group IHD, meanwhile, told Al Jazeera that 22 people died in the clashes.

After the second curfew was reinstated for 12 hours last Sunday, clashes could be heard late into the night between Turkish security forces and the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), a Kurdish armed group that is allegedly close to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

In July, a ceasefire between the Turkish government and the PKK collapsed after a bombing in the town of Suruc killed 32 people, mostly Kurdish activists. Since then, hundreds have died in the fighting.

Cizre saw heavy damage during both curfews. "My house was destroyed during the third day of the curfew. It was almost new, built just a year ago but look at it now," said 68-year-old Hathiye Yokarcik, who lives in Cizre's Noor district, one of three areas controlled by the YDG-H.

• "I don't dare to go in because I fear the police might have left a bomb inside," Yokarcik told Al Jazeera, pointing to the facade of her house that had not yet been painted, but was riddled with dozens of bullet holes.

Rumours that Turkish police have planted booby traps have dissuaded many in Cizre from recovering their belongings after their homes were shelled. Speculation has swirled around a video that purports to show a Turkish police officer carrying an object that looks like a gas canister with a wire hanging from it, while he is escorted by another member of Turkish security forces.

The video has not been authenticated...
  aljazeera.com
 19/9/15
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Related:

• More than 20 Cizre civilians dead during eight-day curfew (Relatives)

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