JINHA

ŞIRNEX –Turkish security forces killed four civilians as they devastated the largely Kurdish town of Beytüşşebap yesterday.

On Thursday evening, the Turkish soldiers began a bombardment in the small mountain district of Beytüşşebap, in Şırnak province. Around 5:30 a.m. on Friday, serious clashes broke out between HPG guerrillas and Turkish soldiers. That was when Turkish soldiers began directing their fire at civilian settlements in the Beytüşşebap district.

As soldiers bombed and opened fire on the Beytüşşebap town center, nearly ten homes, one mosque and four shops were seriously damaged. Soldiers also targeted the municipal building and the buildings of political parties HDP and BDP. Electricity went out after soldiers shot out transformers and electrical poles. Soldiers began a bombardment targeting villages near the local military base. Three were killed and two seriously wounded when a mortar struck a home in the village of Setkar, but soldiers stopped the ambulancecarrying the wounded from leaving the area for three hours.

When another ambulance reached a police checkpoint, the officers shot and killed the ambulance driver, Şehmuz Dursun, as the two paramedics in the ambulance fled the attacking police. As civilians headed to the town’s state hospital for the ambulance driver, police opened fire on the crowd and on the building itself. Police shattered the hospital’s windows and doors, then stopped to collect their shell casings before leaving the scene.

Turkish helicopters also began airstrikes in the area, with one airstrike targeting a guerrilla graveyard on Mt. Kato Jirka. The airstrikes started forest fires in the mountain area.

(gc/dk-pz/fk/cm)