Following the MGK (National Security Council) meeting on 28 December, the Turkish army has made a slaughter with warplanes. At least 35 burnt bodies have been reached so far. The number of casualties is feared to increase.
Around 50 civilians, some of them believed to be borders smugglers, were targeted by F-16 warplanes on Wednesday night at around 21.20 local time. Among the dead are young boys.
According to the information received, wounded survivor Servet Encü came to the village and informed villagers after the assault. Encü said the followings; “We were bombed on our way back to the village. A bitter smell spread during the bombardment, people all at once died burning. Around five people escaped from the bombing and hid themselves amidst rocks but the warplanes dropped bombs on them as well.
While no news is received from many villagers, two wounded civilians were taken to Shirnak State Hospital with ambulances arriving at the scene after the assault.
Soon after being informed about the event, BDP Shirnak Provincial Chair Baki Sondak and BDP administrators went to the scene.
??rnak City Council Deputy Chair Erset Edis said the followings from the scene; “The bodies were burnt to a crisp. Vehicles cannot go into the area due to severe snow. People are trying to reach the area by their own means.”
Remarking that soldiers acted as if nothing had happened and didn’t interfere in the event, BDP Shirnak Provincial Chair Baki Sondak said the followings; “Villagers were bombarded after passing the border with the supplies they bought from the border. It is possible that napalm bombs were used in the assault. There are still some bodies between rocks. We can’t reach the bodies and casualties.”
The names of the 19 confirmed dead are as follows; Özcan Uysal, Nevzat Encü, Salih Encü, Ferhat Encü, Shervan Encü, Osman Kaplan, M. Ali Tosun, Nadir Almak, Yüksel Ürek, Salih Ürek, , Adem And, Hamza Encü, Cemal Encü, Sivan Encü, Bedran Encü, Hüseyin Encü, Selam Encü, Aslan Encü, Celal Encü.
On the other hand, Turkish media are reluctantly beginning to give the news of the massacre in Uludere only hours after it happened.
D.F. – ANF / Shirnak
29 December 2011
http://en.firatnews.eu/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=3794
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The Turkish General Staff released a statement about the massacre in the village of Roboski (Ortasu) in the province of Shirnak. The army confirmed carrying out the bombing with F-16 warplanes.
The number of civilian killed rose to 36 but it is feared this is not the final number.
http://en.firatnews.eu/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=3795
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REUTERS: Turkish air strike kills 35 in north Iraq: officials
Turkish warplanes launched air strikes against suspected Kurdish militants in northern Iraq near the Turkish border overnight, the military said on Thursday, but local officials said the attack killed 35 smugglers who were mistaken for guerrillas.
The Turkish military confirmed it had launched the strike after unmanned drones spotted suspected rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), but said there were no civilians in the area and it was investigating the incident.
“We have 30 corpses, all of them are burned. The state knew that these people were smuggling in the region. This kind of incident is unacceptable. They were hit from the air,” said Fehmi Yaman, mayor of Uludere in Sirnak province.
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) said in a statement that 35 people had been killed and party leaders were heading for the area. Joint chairman Selahattin Demirtas said the party announced a three-day period of mourning.
“It is clear there was a massacre. They will try to cover it up … We will not allow them to cover it up,” Turkish media reported Demirtas as saying. The BDP said it would hold demonstrations in Istanbul and elsewhere to protest the deaths.
The Turkish military said it had learnt that the PKK had sent many militants to the Sinat-Haftanin area, where the strikes occurred in northern Iraq, to retaliate after recent militant losses in clashes.
Military units were warned that PKK groups there were planning attacks on security force border posts in southeast Turkey, prompting the military to increase border surveillance.
“It was established from unmanned aerial vehicle images that a group was within Iraq heading towards our border,” it said.
“Given that the area in which the group was spotted is often used by terrorists and that it was moving towards our border at night, it was deemed necessary for our air force planes to attack and they struck the target at 2137-2224 (1937-2024 GMT),” it said.
“The place where the incident occurred is the Sinat-Haftanin area in northern Iraq where there is no civilian settlement and where the main camps of the separatist terrorist group are located,” it said.
“An administrative and legal investigation and procedures regarding the incident are continuing,” it added.
The Turkish government, which has been battling the PKK since the group took up arms in 1984 to fight for an ethnic Kurdish homeland, was not immediately available for comment.
The governor of Sirnak province, Vahdettin Ozkan, told the state-run Anatolian news agency that more than 20 people had died and the incident was being investigated.
CORPSES LOADED ONTO DONKEYS
Smuggling is an important source of income for locals in provinces along the Iraqi border, with many villagers involved in bringing fuel, cigarettes and other goods from Iraqi villages on the other side of the border.
PKK militants also cross the border in these areas.
“There were rumors that the PKK would cross through this region. Images were recorded of a crowd crossing last night, hence an operation was carried out,” a Turkish security official said.
“We could not have known whether these people were (PKK) group members or smugglers,” he said.
Television images showed a line of corpses covered by blankets on a barren hillside, with a crowd of people gathered around, some with their head in their hands and crying.
Donkeys carried corpses down the hillside to be loaded into vehicles to be taken to hospital.
Security sources said those killed were carrying canisters of diesel on mules and their bodies were found on the Iraqi side of the border.
They said those killed were from Uludere on the Turkish side of the border on what was a regular smuggling route.
The Firat news agency, which has close ties to the PKK, said that 17 people were still believed to be missing. It said those killed were aged around 17-20.
In northern Iraq, PKK spokesman Ahmet Deniz condemned the strike and said F-16 jets had bombed a group of around 50 people taking goods across the border and that 19 people were missing.
The PKK, regarded as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, launches attacks on Turkish forces in southeastern Turkey from hideouts inside the remote Iraqi mountains.
In a statement before the latest incident, the National Security Council said after a regular meeting on Wednesday that recent security forces operations had dealt a major blow against the PKK and the military would continue to fight decisively against the militants.
Turkey and Iran have often skirmished with rebels in the region and Turkish leaders vowed revenge in October with air and ground strikes after the PKK killed 24 Turkish soldiers in raids on military outposts in southeastern Turkey.
It was one of the deadliest attacks since the PKK took up arms in 1984 in a conflict in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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It is reported that the statements made by the Chief of Staff in relation to the massacres carried out by the army of the Turkish Republic in Sirnak Uludere by the warplanes do not reflect the truth:
- The distance between the alleged location of the attacks Sinaht area in Haftanin and the place of massacres is at least 30 km. The location of the incident is the Serê Sas region which is near the border village of Afroke, Roboskî.
- In a region where civilian people continuously pass with hundreds of mules let alone having guerrilla camps or bases, our guerrillas will not even have any movement in such an area at all. It has been alleged that at the location of the massacre is where there are camps or bases of the HPG. The HPG reports that only does it not have any camps or bases at the region mentioned, also they have not had any movement or any attempts to take any action there.
It is reported that this massacre is not an accident or an unwilling act, and it is an organized and planned massacre. The governor of Sirnak and its Division Commander as well as all the military and administrative authorities have knowledge of the border trade along the border line. This border trade takes place under the surveilance of the many military posts that exist throughout the miles of border line. It is therefore not possible that these civilian people have not been recognised. In addition, drones were present in the area where the massacre was carried out on the 28 December from 17 hours to 21.30 hours, when the massacre took place. Nearly everyday these people move around in the same area unarmed and with their mules. It is a total lie that these civilians were not noticed or were thought to be guerrillas. It can be seen that the massacre is a planned one because the soldiers have gathered all the people in an area before the massacre took place. If those wounded had not reached their villages and had not given a first hand account of what had happened it is highly probable that they would have covered up what had actually happened. This massacre has thus exposed the AKP government’s and Atalay’s new packages of ‘opening’. These are the rights Bülent Arinç was talking of giving to the Kurds; these new massacres.
This massacre is an attack directed at the patriotic people of Botan. This is the response given by the colonialist Turkish state to the patriotic nature, devotion and resistance of the people of especially Uludere and that of Botan in general. They wish to take their revenge from the proud people of Botan.
The perpetrators of this massacre should be held accountable for this action.
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Turkey acknowledges killing civilians in Iraq strike:
Turkish warplanes killed 35 civilian smugglers in northern Iraq after mistaking them for Kurdish militants, Ankara’s ruling party said on Thursday, promising not to allow a cover-up of an incident that threatens to wreck relations with minority Kurds.
The attack, which Turkey‘s largest pro-Kurdish party called a “crime against humanity,” sparked clashes between hundreds of stone-throwing protesters and police in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s restive, mainly-Kurdish southeast.
The incident threatens to spoil efforts to forge Turkish-Kurdish consensus for a planned new constitution expected to partly address the issue of rights for the Kurdish minority.
The Turkish military had said its warplanes launched air strikes overnight after drones spotted suspected rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The military had denied there were civilians in the area.
But ruling AK Party spokesman Huseyin Celik said initial reports based on local government officials had found the victims were not militants and that most of the dead were cigarette smugglers under the age of 30.
“It has been determined from initial reports that these people were smugglers, not terrorists,” Celik told a live news conference, calling the incident “saddening.”
“If mistakes were made, if there were flaws and if there were shortcomings in the incident that took place, by no means will these be covered up.”
In addition to demonstrations in Diyarbakir, there were smaller protests in Turkey’s largest city Istanbul, where police fired tear gas and water cannon at pro-Kurdish demonstrators.
“We have 30 corpses, all of them are burned. The state knew that these people were smuggling in the region. This kind of incident is unacceptable. They were hit from the air,” said Fehmi Yaman, mayor of Uludere in Sirnak province.
Television images showed a line of corpses covered by blankets on a barren hillside, with a crowd of people gathered around, some with their head in their hands and crying.
Donkeys carried corpses down the hillside to be loaded into vehicles and taken to hospital.
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) said party leaders were heading for the area and that it would hold demonstrations in Istanbul and elsewhere to protest.
“This is a massacre,” BDP Deputy Chairwoman Gultan Kisanak told a news conference in Diyarbakir. “This country’s warplanes bombed a group of 50 of its citizens to destroy them. This is a war crime and a crime against humanity.”
With most Turks favouring a hardline military response against the PKK, the incident is unlikely to hurt the popularity of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who won a third consecutive term in office in a June vote.
The Turkish military said it had learnt the PKK had sent many militants to the Sinat-Haftanin area, where the strikes occurred in northern Iraq, to retaliate after recent militant losses in clashes.
“It was established from unmanned aerial vehicle images that a group was within Iraq heading towards our border,” it said.
“Given that the area in which the group was spotted is often used by terrorists and that it was moving towards our border at night, it was deemed necessary for our air force planes to attack and they struck the target at 2137-2224 (1937-2024 GMT),” it said.
“The place where the incident occurred is the Sinat-Haftanin area in northern Iraq where there is no civilian settlement and where the main camps of the separatist terrorist group are located,” it said.
An investigation was in progress, it added, without referring to any deaths in the strikes.
CORPSES LOADED ONTO DONKEYS
Smuggling is an important source of income for locals in provinces along the Iraqi border, with many villagers involved in bringing fuel, cigarettes and other goods from Iraqi villages. PKK militants also cross the border in these areas.
“There were rumours that the PKK would cross through this region. Images were recorded of a crowd crossing last night, hence an operation was carried out,” a Turkish security official said. “We could not have known whether these people were (PKK) group members or smugglers.”
Security sources said those killed were carrying canisters of diesel on mules and their bodies were found on the Iraqi side of the border. They said the dead were from Uludere on the Turkish side of the border on a regular smuggling route.
The Firat news agency, which has close ties to the PKK, said that 17 people were still believed to be missing. It said those killed were aged around 17-20.
In northern Iraq, PKK spokesman Ahmet Deniz condemned the strike and said F-16 jets had bombed a group of around 50 people taking goods across the border and that 19 people were missing.
The PKK, regarded as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, launches attacks on Turkish forces in southeastern Turkey from hideouts inside the remote Iraqi mountains.
Turkish leaders vowed revenge in October with air and ground strikes after the PKK killed 24 Turkish soldiers in one of the deadliest attacks since the PKK took up arms in 1984 in a conflict in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
(Writing by Ibon Villelabeitia and Daren Butler and Editing by Giles Elgood)
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Video of the grieving: http://video.milliyet.com.tr/video-izle/Cesetler-Sirnak-a-getirildi-wDWOIx0qn8Ue.html
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BBC: Turkey admits 35 civilian deaths near Kurdish village
A senior Turkish official has acknowledged that 35 civilians were killed in an air strike near a Kurdish village close to the border with Iraq.
Turkey’s military said earlier it had targeted suspected Kurdish militants.
But the victims of Wednesday night’s attack are believed to have been villagers involved in smuggling cigarettes into Turkey from Iraq.
Governing party vice-president Huseyin Celik said an investigation was looking into possible intelligence failures.
The attack, on Wednesday night, took place near the village of Uludere in Sirnak province in south-eastern Turkey.
In a statement, Turkey’s general staff said the area attacked on Wednesday night was inside northern Iraq and had no civilian population. It added that the raid was launched following information that suspected militants were planning to attack Turkish security bases.
But Mr Celik was quoted by AFP news agency as saying later that “if it turns out to have been a mistake, a blunder, rest assured that this will not be covered up”.
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party condemned the air strike as a “massacre”, saying that all the victims were civilians aged between 16 and 20.
“Those killed were young people who made a living from smuggling. There were people studying for university exams among them,” said party leader Selahattin Demirtas.
Mr Celik added that some of the victims were sons of village guards who had helped Turkish troops in their fight against the rebels.
The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) urged the military to exercise greater care. While smuggling was against the law, “being killed in an aerial bombardment was not what they deserved”, a leading CHP official told the Hurriyet website.
Protesters angry at the deaths threw stones at police close to Taksim Square in Istanbul early on Thursday evening, Turkish agencies report.
Diesel explosions
Provincial governor Vahdettin Ozkan said initially that more than 20 people had lost their lives but his office later clarified that 35 had been killed and one injured.
“A crisis centre is being formed at the scene and prosecutors and security officers were sent there,” he told Anatolia news agency.
The mayor of Uludere was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying that all the victims had suffered from burns.
Local officials said drums of diesel carried by the group had exploded.
Many of the victims were said to have been related.
Those killed had been using mules to cross the border when the incident happened, they said.
“We were on our way back when the jets began to bomb us,” a survivor, Servet Encu, told the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency.
The group had been waiting on the Iraqi side of the border for some time about 3km (2 miles) from their village, because they had been told that the route was blocked by the military, Turkish media report.
Pictures from the scene showed bodies on a hillside covered in blankets. The bodies were later taken away to a local hospital.
Smuggling of fuel and cigarettes is said to be commonplace between villages along the Iraqi border. But rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have crossed the border into Turkey to stage attacks on Turkish forces.
After 24 Turkish soldiers were killed in PKK raids in October, Turkish forces responded with a series of air and ground attacks.
