Bêrîtan Elyakut / JINHA

AMED – For the Nusaybin women who survived the police massacre that killed 21 on Newroz 1992, the massacre will never be erased from the memories of the Kurdish people or the pages of history. The women who led the march, now in their middle and old age, still bear the scars of the attack.

The early 1990s in Northern Kurdistan saw Newroz, Kurdish New Year, begin to be celebrated in Northern Kurdistan, against longstanding repression of Kurdish culture, as a holiday of resistance.

Massive street actions called the serhildan, or uprisings, began in the Botan region of Northern Kurdistan, in the cities of Silopi and Cizre. Women in the Botan region became leaders in the massification of the movement. Newroz became a flashpoint for expressions of resistance—and women stepped into action.

Women's self-immolation actions became one of the recurring expressions of rebellion on Newroz. After Zekiye Alkan set herself on fire atop the historic walls of the city of Diyarbakır on Newrozday 1990, women's self-immolation actions spread far beyond the central Kurdish city: Rahşan Demirel in Izmir in 1992 and Ronahî and Bêrîvan in Mannheim, Germany in 1994 would do the same.

In 1992, with the media and government spreading rumors that the PKK movement would announce independence on March 21^st, Newroz Day, police brutally attacked a group of people in Cizre who had come to the city center to visit the graveyard of the fallen, killing 17. 17-year-old Bêrîvan, a young woman and a leader of the Cizre Newroz, became a symbol for women across Northern Kurdistan.

The people of Nusaybin, in the province of Mardin, responded to the attack the next day, gathering in the thousands at the Çağ Bridge (now known as Martyrs' Bridge) to march in support of Cizre. Security forces cut off the crowd on either end of the bridge with riot vehicles and opened fire. Many jumped off the bridge to escape and then drowned. 21 died in Nusaybin that day.

61-year-old Vesile Kaya recalls the statement made by İsmet Sezgin, then the Minister of Internal Affairs, on the evening of March 21, that gave them the news of the Cizre massacre as they were returning from their Newroz celebrations themselves. The next day, March 22, she was among those who took to the streets.

The police and military gave a notice to disperse and when no one stood up from the sit-in action on the bridge, the tanks began to drive over the people, she said.

"The vehicles were driving over us, going through the crowd to the other side. One passed right by me and my foot got stuck under the tire. The skin was all peeled off. I headed for the water."

Seeing that special forces had cut off her path, Vesile jumped into the water. It was only thanks to an acquaintance who pulled her out of the water that she didn't drown. She says the bodies of many others like her were fished out of the river on the Syrian side of the border.

"We know of 21 people dead but we had around 40 wounded."

Semire Acar, 50, says she recalls the moment when they were on the bridge holding a sit-inwhen they found either end of the bridge blocked by riot suppression vehicles.

"It was only when an old man stood in front of the tank and made a victory sign that the military vehicles cut us off. When the military vehicles started moving around in the crowd, people shouted slogans and they used this as an excuse to run us over," she said.

"I can still see those people being run over before my eyes. I was facing the other way when a tank ran over my foot." Her foot is still scarred. But she says the state continues these massacres today. "As long as these scars are on my body, the rage inside me won't end."

Taybet Akan, 40, still bears the scars of the day on her body: she lost an arm and an eye in the attack. Taybet, then 17, was in the front of the march that year.

"Maybe they can forget this, but we never will," she said. She noted that the initial Newroz celebrations the day before had gone uninterrupted, but the March 22 solidarity demonstration was different.

"We wanted to walk to the graveyard of our martyrs but military vehicles cut us off in front and behind. Without any warning, the vehicles started running people over. The crowd was being driven away and they held a sit-in action on Çağ Bridge but suddenly there was blood everywhere.

"The police really mowed us down. It was so clear that they wanted to massacre us there," she said.

Taybet was shot in the action. Her left arm was shattered and she lost her left eye. Her mother was the first to get the news that Taybet would be disabled for life. Taybet says this Newroz, she just wants to see PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan released.

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