JINHA

ŞIRNEX – Hundreds of women’s movement activists have reached the besieged Kurdish city of Cizre. The women will hold three days of solidarity activites with the women and children of Cizre.

Over the course of nine days, Turkish security forces maintained a total blockade of the Kurdish city of Cizre. 21 civilians were killed by security forces or as a result of the total blockade of medical services over the course of the nine days. In the wake of the assault on Cizre, the group Women’s Initiative for Peace called on women’s rights activists from across Turkey to visit the city.

The group of 150 women from across Turkey arrived in Cizre yesterday afternoon. A crowd of women and children greeted the bus with ululations and slogans. The women activists descended from the bus with a banner: “We came to increase the ululations. We are Cizre’s witnesses; we will defend peace.”

“We are here to learn from you, to embrace you, to say that we’re not far away; we’re here,” said Filiz Karakuş, addressing the women of Cizre on behalf of the women’s movement activists. “We’re here to say that your fate is our fate; your struggle is our struggle; your loss is our loss; your stories are our stories. We’re here to say that we know what you have given to women’s history and to say that everything done to you, as women, has been done to us.”

After the statement, the women visited the families of the 21 civilians killed during the blockade. They then headed to the heavily-damaged Nur neighborhood, where they set up a series of children’s activities in the street.

For a few hours, the children were able to forget the trauma of war. Women involved in summer schools and creative drama workshops set up games and activities for the children.

(ekip/pz/fk/cm)