13 children killed by state violence in Turkey in 2015

10:19

JINHA

NEWS CENTER - With the execution of two teenage boys working at a bakery on Wednesday, Turkish state forces have now killed 13 children so far in 2015.

In 2006, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (now President of Turkey) made a statement characteristic of the state's attitude to children, especially in Kurdish areas. "Whether it's women or children, we'll do whatever is necessary," he said at the time. Since then, dozens of children have been shot, bombed, exploded by mines, run over by armored vehicles and assassinated by state forces in Turkey.

Since 1988, 490 children have died from state violence in Turkey. Many--like 11-year-old girl Fatma Erkan, photographed by soldiers with a gun almost as tall as her intentionally placed alongside her dead body--have gone down in official records as "terrorists."

16-year-old Orhan Aslan and 15-year-old Muhammet Aydemir, slain by state forces while working at a bakery in the largely Kurdish town of Diyadin, became the 12th and 13th children to die this way in 2015.

The first such killing this year was that of 14-year-old Ümit Kurt, killed by a bullet to the heart on January 6. That day, armored vehicles entered a neighborhood in the town of Cizre, located in Şırnak province. Records show that the bullet fired from the armored vehicle was intentionally aimed at Ümit. Just a few days later, on January 14, a police special operations team again opened fire on children in Cizre, killing 12-year-old Nihat Kazanhan.

Just one week ago, 17-year-old Mehmet Hıdır Tanboğa was killed in the town of Silopi, in Şırnak province, when police began opening fire indiscriminately on a neighborhood. Police blocked access to the hospital for the wounded.

(gc/fk/cm)