JINHA

ŞIRNEX – In the early days of state attacks on the town of Cizre, Turkish state forces shot down Hediye Şen with eight bullets in front of her home. Hediye’s 8-year-old daughter Kevser, speaking with sadness and rage in her eyes, asks, “What did my mother do to you; why did you kill her!”

The town of Cizre has witnessed the worst atrocities, but also the proudest resistance. Everyone’s story must be written down here, so that history is not forgotten. But most of all, the story of the children must be written down.

Like the children of Hediye Şen, killed by eight bullets fired by state forces on the fourth day of the blockade of Cizre. Kevser is eight; Kenan, four; and Hamdiye two years old. It’s been two months since they lost their mother.

The children left Cizre then, and are now living with their grandparents in the village of Dilopkê (Damlabaşı in Turkish), in the nearby district of Güçlükonak, trying to stay alive. The sorrow and rage in Kevser’s eyes tells how much she misses her mother. Two-year-old Hamdiye, meanwhile, does not know what has happened; every day, he expects to see his mother again. Kenan invites us into the house with a big smile.

Halime Şen, Hediye’s husband’s mother, begins to speak with little Hamdiye in her arms. Halime also had to abandon her home in Cizre when the state attacks began. She said that Hediye lived a modest life in a run-down house in the Cudi neighborhood of Cizre with her children and husband.

“They had a shanty house and the restroom was outside. She’s going go to the restroom one night. When she goes outside her front door, the occupying state forces rake her with gunfire,” says Halime. “Her husband Mahmut goes outside. At this point, the electricity goes out. My son goes to look in the restroom; he doesn’t see her. When he turns, he trips over Hediye’s body.”

The last time Halime spoke with Hediye, Hediye had asked her mother-in-law to come stay with them. Halime assured her that since their house had a basement, they would be fine in their own home, as long as the state did not demolish it on top of them.

“The next night, my son called. He said, ‘Mom, they shot Hediye,’” says Halime. The family could not go outside because of the curfew. “My son closes the door so the children won’t see. He spreads a blanket over Hediye’s body. He begins to wait.” In the morning, Mahmut brought the children to his mother’s home.

“I asked, ‘you brought the little ones, where’s their mother?’ and we began to cry,” says Halime.

Hediye’s husband Mahmut Şen met with the police chief in Cizre on three separate occasions in an effort to retrieve his wife’s body.

“It came to the point where we were nearly going to be happy to get the dead body,” says Halime. She says that Hediye helped children in the neighborhood. When she died, she had 25 students who were learning the Qur’an from her.

Halime cries as she says that 2-year-old Hamdiye asks for his mother every day.

“The occupying state killed her. These three children have been left motherless. They’re always asking me for their mother. The little one asks his father, ‘when will we go to mom?’” says Halime. “The older girl and the boy know that their mother is dead, but the little one doesn’t understand.”

We turn off the camera and speak with Hediye’s children. As middle child Kenan says he misses his mother, the oldest child, Kevser, calls the killers to account:

“What did my mother do to you? Why did you kill her!”

(ekip/sy/cm)