BêrîtanCanözer/JINHA

AMED – In the 1990s, the residents of the Kurdish village of Çerikê, in Diyarbakır province, were driven from their village for years by the Turkish states policies of village destruction. Women returning to the village say that now, they are returning to the village to build an environmentally friendly life.

During the Turkish state's war on Kurdish civilians, Turkish soldiers evacuated thousands of villages across Northern Kurdistan. Many villages were burned to the ground. Some were turned over to Kurds who collaborated with the Turkish state as part of the "village guard" paramilitary system. Despite all the difficulties, the victims of forced evacuation have been struggling to return to their villages—and to build a greener life in the lands they were force to abandon.

In Çerikê, in the Silvan district, there are more and more faces around the long abandoned village. Every day, another wall gets painted and another window returned to its frame. MensureYalçıner, 46, starts her day in the village at 5 to milk the animals.

"Everything you can think of is completely natural," said Mensure, who explained that the villagers make their own bread from the wheat they grow themselves. "It's not an undeveloped or backwards village; our people are conscious. We may get tired, but it's not the same weariness that life surrounded by concrete gives you."

Although many villagers have returned, economic inequality continues. Many of the village residents spent their summers as migrant laborers working under poor conditions in various parts of Turkey, whether as agricultural laborers or in the cities.

"When they come here, they say they don't like those places," said Mensure, "and they miss their village."

(zd/fk/cm)