Police besiege several neighbourhoods in Yüksekova

Police have been besieging several residential areas in Yüksekova for five days. “The situation is worrying. We can't even visit our neighbours anymore. Armoured cars are at every corner, said a local resident.

In several residential areas in the northern Kurdish district town of Yüksekova there has been a night military siege for five days. The districts of Orman, Dize, Yeşildere, Kışla, Cumhuriyet and Güngör are particularly affected. Every evening from 8 pm, police units patrol the streets and carry out identity checks. Anyone found on the street is searched and an electronic data search is carried out.

A resident, who wants to remain anonymous for security reasons, talked about the situation in his neighbourhood and says that now nobody leaves the house in the evening. Young people in particular are interrogated by the police and asked where they are going, where they work and what they are doing on the street. “The situation is worrying. We can't even visit our neighbours anymore. Armoured vehicles are at every corner,” said the resident.

Yüksekova is located in the province of Hakkari in the extreme southeast of Turkey on the border with Iran and Iraq and is a stronghold of the Kurdish liberation movement.