Bêrîtan Elyakut/JINHA

AMED – In the main Kurdish city of Diyarbakır, residents have started an indefinite sit-in until the Turkish state lifts its siege on the Kurdish town of Cizre.

For eight days now, Turkish state security forces have maintained a brutally-enforced 24-hour curfew in the Kurdish town of Cizre. Police are opening fire on anyone who steps outside. With police blocking ambulance service and access to hospitals, the death toll rises every day in the town.

People protested the siege on Cizre last night in seven cities across Turkey and Kurdistan, despite police attacks on protestors in Diyarbakır, Bursa and İzmir. In the main Kurdish city of Diyarbakır, locals have now started an indefinite sit-in calling for the lifting of the siege. JINHA spoke to the women on the front lines of the sit-in.

“The only thing we mothers want is peace,” said Sakine Basil, one of the women at the sit-in, “and we will cry out for it until our last drop of blood.” She denounced the pressure on mothers of soldiers killed in the conflict in Kurdistan to make patriotic statements, saying “we mothers don’t want to cry anymore.”

“Nobody should make plans for our sons and daughters,” said Hanife Kartal. The women said that they will not leave the sit-in until they achieve their goal.

(kt/mg/cm)