JINHA

ŞIRNEX – With the nine-day blockade of the Kurdish town of Cizre, Turkey lifted, delegations of human rights organizations and activists have begun to enter the town.

Turkish security forces maintained a 24-hour curfew on the town of Cizre, Turkey from September 4 until this morning, leading to the deaths of at least 21 civilians. Police blocked ambulance access to Cizre’s neighborhoods and shot civilians who left their homes. In response, groups of politicians, activists and thousands of ordinary citizens marched towards Cizre across the rough mountain terrain, demanding that the curfew be lifted. Today at 7 a.m., the popular resistance succeeded and the Turkish state lifted the curfew.

Delegations are now beginning to pour into Cizre, hoping to tend to the town’s wounds. Peoples’ Democratic Party co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ and a convoy of Parliamentary representatives, women’s and Kurdish rights activists, human rights workers and lawyers reached Cizre this morning after being kept out by police barricades for days.
The people of Cizre took to their balconies to applaud the incoming convoy, chanting “murderer Erdoğan” (referring to Turkey’s president). Thousands poured into the streets this morning in protest of the killings after a 75-year-old man was killed last night and a small child was wounded in an explosion this morning.

A 60-person delegation of medical workers and social workers have now set out for Cizre to provide volunteer medical services to the town. The anti-war activists of Diyarbakır’s Peace Mothers Assembly; musical groups; and the Human Rights Association and Human Rights Foundation of Turkey are among the many other groups also sending delegations to Cizre today.

(ekip/fk/ny/gc/cm)