Turkish streets 'became battlefields'

Whereas rebels declare duty for lethal automotive bombs within the capital, the Turkish army is cracking down within the southeast the place cities and cities are closely Kurdish.

“My nation resides a really onerous time proper now,” photographer Emin Ozmen stated. “I’ve to doc it. Individuals in Turkey and out of Turkey ought to see it to know the place we’re going.”

For the previous six months, Ozmen has been in southeastern Turkey, visiting the entrance strains of a battle that has claimed greater than forty,000 lives over the previous three many years.

He photographed a number of areas that have been beneath a 24-hour curfew because the Turkish army tried to root out the enemy.

Residents are given someday’s discover to allow them to depart earlier than the curfews go into impact, Ozmen stated. Hundreds do.

However he stated “for the individuals who determine to remain, the every day life is deprivation: no water, no electrical energy, no meals. In each metropolis, in each neighborhood, (there’s) the identical decor: streets was battlefields. At every intersection, barricades and trenches.”

Ozmen began in Diyarbakir and later moved on to Derik, Sirnak, Silopi, Cizre, Nusaybin and Idil.

“I went earlier than, after and in the course of the curfew occasions,” Ozmen stated. “I witnessed the individuals who fled from their houses, I noticed the tears of the individuals who misplaced their family members. I additionally spent some nights with younger militants behind the barricades. I needed to satisfy the younger fighters to know why they’re preventing.”

Ozmen’s photographs of Cizre present a city in ruins. He obtained in on the finish of a 24-hour curfew that lasted seventy eight days.

“What I witnessed there was unforgettable,” he stated. “I used to be actually shocked to see this type of scene in my nation: forty% of the town was completely destroyed in the course of the clashes.

“Some individuals nonetheless had no information from their kinfolk, perhaps executed or lifeless through the fights. Individuals have been in deep shock and unhappiness. It was exhausting to see all of the households turning again for the primary time to their house after they fled and discovering it was completely destroyed. Lots of them misplaced the whole lot.”

Cizre’s curfew has been scaled again to 10 hours, from 7 p.m. to five a.m., Ozmen stated. However the 24-hour curfews nonetheless stay in impact for a lot of different areas, and neither aspect has proven any intention of letting up.

“This battle appears countless,” the photographer stated.

Source link