JINHA

NEWS CENTER - Excavations to uncover a mass grave likely containing the remains of families slain during the Turkish state's 1938 Dersim Massacre will take place today.

The Turkish government ordered a massacre in the area of Dersim (called Tunceli in Turkish) in 1938, in the wake of an uprising by local Alevi leader Seyid Riza. The Turkish army killed between 50 and 80,000 people in a systematic repression of the civilian population of Zazaki-speaking Alevi Kurds.

Eight human skulls were already found during the evening hours yesterday evening in the first investigation into a mass grave that local families say holds the bones of 24 of their ancestors, including women and children. The excavation work will resume today.

A local court decided to start excavations in a rural area in the eastern province of Dersim to investigate claims by the families of 24 people that they are buried in a mass grave in Dersim. The excavations, the first such operations in the area, started on April 15 in the Karabayır village of Dersim’s Hozat district, where 24 people from the Cana and Baran families are thought to be buried.

Cihan Söylemez, a lawyer for the Baran and Canan families, said the excavations could lead to others like it. The Hozat Public Prosecutor’s Office started the excavations upon a court order, said Söylemez, adding that this was the first “concrete and historic step” to be taken in the case of the bloody Dersim events.

“DNA tests and scientific examinations to determine the date of death will be conducted on the bones that will be removed from the mass grave in the area. We are sure that these forensic examinations will provide concrete proof of the Dersim incidents,” Söylemez said.

The Baran and Canan families, who have pushed for the excavation of the site, state that 24 of their ancestors, including women and children, were taken from the Karabakır village on August 14, 1938 and executed in the Saka Sure neighborhood by military personnel.

(nt)