Marches, hunger strike against Turkish siege in North Kurdistan capital

Demonstrators call on Turkish government to lift the curfew in Amed's Sur district, allow evacuation of wounded · Relatives of children killed announce "death fast" if corpses on the streets not handed to them

02.03.201610.45h

Sur district. Author: HDP

The Kurdish movement is holding today a series of marches in protest against the siege and curfew that Turkish forces have been imposing on the district of Sur, in downtown Amed (Diyarbakir), the capital of North Kurdistan, for three months. In a parallel action, a group of parents have announced they will begin a "death fast" if they do not receive within a week the corpses of their children -which have been lying on the streets for weeks.

The victims' relatives say the hunger strike will begin within a week, according to PKK-linked Firat News agency. This was announced by Mustafa Çukur, the father of 17-year-old student Rozerin Çukur, who was killed amid the violence between Turkish forces on one side and PKK-linked militias on the other. According to Mustafa Çukur, 10 bodies of children have not yet been retrieved because of the violent conditions in Sur.

Speaking to Middle East Eye, the press office of Amed governorate said it cannot be confirmed whether the bodies are actually on the street or not, and that this will not be known "before the terrorists", referring to the Kurdish militias, "are cleaned from the area."

On Monday the two main pro-Kurdish parties in Turkey (the DBP and HDP) and the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) called a series of marches for today, Wednesday, from all districts of Amed towards Sur, demanding that Turkey lift the curfew on that district and the wounded can be evacuated. The curfew has been in force in Sur since December 2nd 2015.

Amed Governor prohibited the marches from entering Sur, where Turkish artillery is today striking parts of the district, according to Firat News.

HDP is also calling Turkish forces to stop attacks against the houses of residents and against architectural heritage of the Amed. An article by The Guardian quotes Kurdish mayors and groups' representatives saying that the target of those Turkish attacks is to destroy much of Sur in order to have an excuse to rebuild it, expel its current population to Amed's periphery, and turn Sur into a new neighborhood for well-off classes.