Families of basement victims: The state should be afraid of us

Families of the people victimised in the basement of savagery expressed their anger at the Turkish government and the president Tayyip Erdoğan, and warned that everyone would be harmed if their children were harmed.

Reports are coming through since last night that state forces massacred the wounded people who had been waiting for ambulances in several basements in Cizre for days.

Families of the people reportedly massacred in the basement of savagery spoke to ANF hours before the reports of mass killing. Expressing their anger at the Turkish government and president Tayyip Erdoğan, families warned that everyone would be harmed if their children were harmed. They said that nobody should expostulate if the bodies of dead soldiers arrive in western Turkey in the near future, and stressed that the state could not exterminate Kurdish people with these murders.

As ANF, we were planning to cover the families’ statements with an emphasis on the demand for ambulances today. However, the massacre increased the importance of the families’ warnings to the Turkish state.

MOTHER AKTAŞ: YOU CANNOT EXTERMINATE KURDS

Meliha Aktaş: I am the mother of Rohat Aktaş. We have been on the road to Cizre for 14 days now. They destroyed the basement where our children sought refuge, we haven’t heard from our kids for the past week. We don’t know if they’re dead or alive. I don’t want my children to die in that basement. If anything happens to them, it would mean that it happened to Kurdish people. I call upon the Prime Minister; what would you do if your children were in that basement and you couldn’t hear from them? Put yourself in our shoes for a minute. Do you think that Cizre is a part of somewhere else? We got on the road to evacuate our children but you won’t allow us. Our parliamentarians try to retrieve the wounded but you attack them with teargas canisters. You cannot exterminate Kurdish people with these massacres; you only increase the pain.

MOTHER YAVUZER: THE STATE SHOULD FEAR KURDISH MOTHERS

Hanım Yavuzel: I am the mother of Mehmet Yavuzel, we have been on the road for days now in order to evacuate our children. We are here to put an end to the savagery and brutality of AKP. What is it that they cannot share with us? What do they expect to get from us with this brutality? If they mean to kill us, they cannot exterminate us. Thousands are born when one of us dies! The Turkish state should know this well; we multiply every time one of us is killed. The state should fear Kurdish mothers! I call upon everyone, who says that they are human beings who stand against brutality, to come to Botan and put water on this fire. We still have wounded people in the basement, and the bodies of our martyrs are rotting there. I don’t know what else to say, shame on everyone who is passive now. My only wish is that Davutoğlu’s children experience the exact same thing my Mehmet is going through now.

BROTHER YAVUZEL: THEY HAVE BEEN IN AGONY FOR DAYS

Halil Yavuzel: I am the brother of Mehmet Yavuzel. I call upon the so-called Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu; our wounded have been in the basement for 15 days! After the meeting of our parliamentarian İdris Baluken with government officials, ambulances were sent to the basements in Cizre but soldiers and police officers prevented their passage, saying that they did not recognize the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister had any honor, he would have resigned by now! I don’t think he has any honor. President Erdoğan, the perpetuator of this war, tries to exterminate Kurdish people with his dictatorship. He will fail and his dictatorship will end sooner or later! He should see what happened to neighboring dictators; whatever happened to Saddam and Assad will soon happen to him. We call upon Kurdish and Turkish peoples; nobody should expostulate if the bodies of dead soldiers arrive in western Turkey in the near future because our children have been in agony for days now. They have left 37 of our people to die in that basement; the whole world should see this. If international courts ignore this savagery, nobody should even speak of law, justice and terrorism.