Turkey’s
security operations in the mainly Kurdish southeast resemble
‘collective punishment’, and have risked the lives of some
200,000 people, placing residents in the crossfire and depriving them
of water and electricity, Amnesty International said. The human
rights watchdog refuted Ankara’s claims that the 24/7 curfew it
imposed in areas where the government troops were fighting the armed
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) units were aimed solely at protecting
civilians.
One
Kurdish family said that they had to live under the same roof with
the decomposing body of their dead relative for nearly two weeks due
to the curfew, Amnesty International wrote on its website. 150
civilians as well as hundreds of troops on both sides were killed
since Turkey launched its operation in the south-east in July 2014,
according to the London-based watchdog.
“Among
those killed were young children, women and elderly people, who are
very unlikely to have been involved in clashes with security forces,”
Amnesty stressed.
The
Turkish operations in Diyarbakir, Cizre, Silopi and other Kurdish
towns “are beginning to resemble collective punishment,”
Dalhuisen [Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Program
Director] said. Amnesty also blasted the international community
for turning a blind eye to what Ankara has been doing with the Kurds.
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