JINHA

AMED - For two days now, the people of Silvan in Turkey's Diyarbakır province have been defending against the police, with women forming self-defense units to fight in the streets.

For two days, neighborhood residents in the Silvan district of the largely Kurdish Diyarbakır province have been resisting police attempts to occupy the neighborhood. Clashes lasted throughout the night last night, as police evacuated the top floors of a number of houses on Çelikler Avenue and posted snipers on the roofs of houses. One youth has been severely wounded in the clashes and local shopkeepers have kept their shutters closed in protest this morning.

Women have formed their own autonomous self-defense units in the town. The curtains hung in the streets to block snipers' view recall the days of war in the Kurdish city in Kobanê, Rojava, where a similar tactics was used.

Older women in the neighborhood have supported the resistance, whether by bringing food and singing songs with the youth posted at every corner or by walking the streets with clubs in their hands. Residents of all ages have joined in digging trenches in several neighborhoods.

"Despite all these attacks against us, we are still saying 'peace,'" said one woman joining in the resistance in the Tekel neighborhood. "We are in the streets to stop the police from carrying out executions and to stop more blood from being shed."

"The police made a gesture at us from above to say, 'we'll cut off your heads,'" said another woman. "If these youth don't stand watch at the corners, these police won't let us sit in our own homes. They'll kill us all. No matter how much they come to kill us, we will keep saying, 'peace.'"

(fk/cm)