Medya Cebe-Asya Tekin/JINHA

COLEMÊRG - In the Kurdish town of Yüksekova, Turkey, there is no house left untouched by two days of state attacks with mortars and automatic weapons. Women in the town have taken up an active role in the defense and say they refuse to abandon their homes.

In the Kurdish town of Yüksekova (Kurdish name Gever), constant police raids made everyday life nearly impossible. Earlier this month, residents declared that they would govern themselves. They declared that the institutions of the state had lost their legitimacy.

On Wednesday night, Turkish police and soldiers launched an all-out attack on the town. The mortar bombardment and machine gun attacks killed four civilians, one of them a woman. Hundreds of people took to the streets, forming trenches and barricades to defend themselves. Women young and old have taken up an active role building and defending the barricades over the last two days.

Meşrude Kaya said that the sorrow she felt for the lives lost was as great as the rage she felt towards the police. She described the way that police refused to let residents take their wounded to the hospital. When mortar fire set one house on fire, police stopped residents from intervening to stop the blaze.

"As women, we are forced to defend ourselves and this is what we'll do," said Meşrude. "We don't want war and we've done all we can to prevent it. But the AKP government has made its decision."

Another woman, Zînarin Rojava, identified herself as a member of the YDG-K (Patriotic Revolutionary Young Women). The armed group of women has organized in Kurdish towns to defend them from police attacks.

"I'm a woman and I'm always for peace, but at the point we're at, the AKP government has ignored all our calls for peace and is dragging Turkey into a war. This can't just be allowed to happen without a response," said Zînarin. "If they want war, we'll give them war."

Zînarin stressed that the trenches and barricades were entirely defensive measures. Just as the fighters of the Kurdish women's defense forces the YPJ defended the city of Kobanê from Daesh, she said, "they'll see that same spirit of women's revolution in Gever."

Rızbar Akdoğan was praying on her balcony when the mortar bombardment of the neighborhood began. Her husband, İbrahim Akdoğan, is the neighborhood's imam. The attack wounded İbrahim and destroyed their house. Rızbar, thanking God that her children were not at home that night, said that, "God will call the police and soldiers who did this account."

(gc/zd/fk/cm)