The Turkish army attacks areas with a civilian population in Kurdistan and wants to force villagers out by firing mortars into various villages. One of these villages is the Bedehê village in the Metina zone. The village is shot at from the Deştanê Outpost in Çelê, causing damages to villagers. Bedehê residents who don’t want to evacuate their village spoke to the ANF.

“WE WILL NOT EVACUATE OUR VILLAGE”

Mam Tahir has been living in the Bedehê village for years, and said the following:

“The Turkish state has been attacking the places we live and our villages. The people who live here are barely getting by as it is, and the mortars the Turkish army fires tear down our homes and cause us damage. When will this injustice end? It has come to such a point that we can’t take our animals up to the mountains to graze. Despite all their cruelty, the Turkish state should know that we will not abandon our village and leave.”

Tahir said there is no peace left in the village because of the Turkish state’s attacks and continued: “Many families have stopped coming to the village because of the attacks. People can’t live in their newly built homes. There are families who are really struggling to get by, but the Turkish state is leaving these families with no options. Our children can’t stay indoors because they are afraid. The mortars frighten our children and our families.”

“WE ARE NO DIFFERENT FROM OUR OTHER KURDISH BRETHREN”

Another village resident, Mam Salih, said that the house that had been hit most recently was unoccupied by chance, and continued: “The mortar that hit the house caused a lot of damage, but the family wasn’t inside by chance. If they had come back just one day before, none of them would have survived.

What gives them the right to brutally attack the lands we live on? They claim to ‘hit the PKK’, but they target the civilians living in villages. We are no different from our other Kurdish brethren. What has been done to them has been done to us.”