‘People want to return to their old neighbourhoods. I will work to bring those people back,’ said village chief candidate Metin Arslan, shown here indicating damaged buildings in the Kurdish town of Sur in Turkish Kurdistan (Southeastern Turkey), February 2019. Photo: AFP
DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey Kurdistan,— Candidates campaigning for upcoming local elections in the Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey (Turkish Kurdistan) have a serious conundrum: the villages they want to run have been largely emptied by clashes between Kurdish rebels and Turkish soldiers.
The violence, which resumed after the collapse of a fragile ceasefire in 2015, hit the historic walled town of Sur in the main Kurdish province of Diyarbakir especially hard.
Thousands had to abandon the Kurdish region, with many houses demolished during intense clashes between the Turkish military and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants.
Mehmet Kacan, who is running for village chief in the March 31 elections, finds himself chasing some 4,000 voters of his Fatihpasa neighbourhood who simply are not at home.
“The people are now scattered all around the province,” Kacan told AFP.
“It is hard to afford a living there, people cannot even pay their electricity bills. They want to return to their old neighbourhoods,” he said, vowing: “I will work to bring those people back.”
Around 6,000 families were forced to leave six Sur neighbourhoods, and no one has returned, according to a February report by the Diyarbakir-based Dicle Social Studies Centre.
While construction of new homes has been continuing since 2017, police barriers and concrete blocks prevent any access to the town, a UNESCO World Heritage site with ancient fortified walls, historic mosques, churches and synagogues.
Although many people moved away, they remain registered as residents to avoid losing state benefits such as rent allowances and compensation for damaged homes.
The devastated Kurdish Cizre town in Sirnak province, Turkish Kurdistan, March 2, 2016. Photo: Sputnik
‘No neighbourhood left’
Turkey stepped up the fight against Kurdish militants following a 2016 failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, declaring a state of emergency under which tens of thousands of people were arrested or sacked from their jobs.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
Parts of Sur have endured 24-hour curfews lasting weeks at a time, preventing Kurdish civilians from fleeing combat zones.
Activists have accused Turkish security forces of causing huge destruction to urban centres and killing Kurdish civilians.
Although the district — a tourist attraction as one of the first places where humanity began settled life — has been rebuilt, it has changed significantly.
Kacan, an electrician, is going street by street in search of an audience for his campaign platform.
At a local coffeehouse, he came across two former residents from Fatihpasa who lamented their loss.
“There is no neighbourhood left physically to talk about,” said Selim Turgul. “When we left the neighbourhood we did not change our addresses… because we wanted to get back to our house there.”
He said many former residents “are in a dire situation”, adding: “We are hoping to return. We want our own house.”
‘You see the suffering
Orhan Kacan, a former resident of Fatihpasa neighbourhood, also wants to return home.
“You see the suffering of people. They cannot pay their rents for four months,” he said. “We want to live in peace. We want our neighbourhood to be like it was before, so that we can return.”
Savas is another devastated neighbourhood where the number of voters has dropped to 1,800 from 3,000.
Metin Arslan, another candidate for village chief or muhtar, is also touring the coffeehouses, to little avail.
“Our residents live somewhere else because the neighbourhood is abandoned,” he said.
“It is not appropriate to make promises to an electorate in a neighbourhood that no longer exists.”
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, AFP | Ekurd.net