Sarya Gözüoğlu/JINHA

AMED - As war escalates in the Kurdistan region of Turkey, nurses and healthcare workers have become police targets as they try to intervene to save the victims of the fighting. Healthcare workers' unions have now started a campaign for peace.

Over the last month, the ruling AKP has escalated police and military attacks in Northern Kurdistan (in Turkey). Hardly a day passes without news of a new police killing in towns like Silopi, Cizre, Yüksekova, Silvan and Lice, where clashes have been particularly intense. In some towns, like Yüksekova, police have shut down hospitals during the course of attacks. In other cases, as in the town of Silopi, police opened fire on wounded residents trying to reach the hospital.

Most recently, a state sniper shot a nurse named Eyüp in the town of Cizre Ergen. Eyüp was trying to evacuate a wounded citizen, in the most recent incident of an apparent state policy of targeting healthcare workers.

Now, healthcare workers unions and professional organizations have started a campaign: "Health Workers Want Peace." Gönül Erden, co-chair of the healthcare and service workers' union SES, explained that the attacks on healthcare workers violate international law.

"Healthcare workers have become an open target," said Gönül. Gönül said that the union has observed a large number of healthcare workers abandoning the war-torn Kurdistan region as the attacks on nurses and medics increase. Some have resigned, while others have sought transfers.

Unions have called on healthcare workers not to abandon their posts. As part of the peace campaign, workers are also organizing to sign peace declarations across Turkey and hold vigils against the war.

"We're people who, when necessary, will wait for days to get a baby's fever down," said Arzu Çerkes, the general secretary of the union confederation DİSK. "But now, with Turkey's war policies, we're providing healthcare services in an environment where people are dying everyday and children are being killed in the middle of the street. And healthcare workers have become a target in this process." She said that workers would continue to work to provide healthcare services despite the danger.

"One of the most important prerequisites for a healthcare provider is to be on the side of peace and life," said Arzu. The union, she said, is escalating its anti-war organizing.

(kt/fk/cm)