Thousands flee southeastern Sur district amid clashes

ANKARA – The Associated Press

People carry their belongings as some thousands of people leave the historic Sur district of Diyarbakır, Jan. 27, 2016, after authorities, fighting outlawed PKK militants there, expanded a 24-hour curfew to include five more neighborhoods. AP Photo

Thousands of people fled the Sur district of Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır province on Jan. 27 after authorities fighting outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants there expanded a 24-hour curfew to include five more neighborhoods.

An Associated Press journalist on Jan. 27 witnessed more than 2,000 people leaving Sur as the expanded curfew was announced. People were seen moving bedding, heaters and washing machines on carts, pulling suitcases and carrying cages with their pet canaries.
      
Mehmet Karatay, 55, said he moved to Sur in the early 1990s after clashes with the PKK spread to villages in the southeast. 
    
"I have 10 children," Karatay said. "There are thousands of miserable people like me. Where will we be going from now on?" he asked as he left Sur.

A statement from the local administrator's office for Sur said the curfew - which bars residents from leaving homes and observers or journalists from entering to monitor the fighting - was enlarged to enable the security forces to "restore public order" in neighborhoods where the militants had dug trenches and set barricades and explosive devices.

Meanwhile, three soldiers were killed in an attack in Sur, which has been under a curfew since December as the security forces battle PKK militants. Doğan News Agency reported heavy fighting in Sur, where the military says at least 134 militants have been killed since December.
      
Authorities have been imposing curfews in towns and districts to flush militants from urban areas in Turkey's southeast since the collapse of a peace process with the PKK in July. The Turkish Human Rights Foundation says at least 198 civilians, including 39 children, have died in combat areas under curfew since August.
      
Legislators from Turkey's Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said on Jan. 27 that more than 20 people wounded in the conflict were awaiting medical care, trapped for the past three days in the basement of a building in the town of Cizre, which is also under curfew. Leyla Birlik, deputy for Şırnak province where Cizre is located, said five other people had died in the basement and their bodies had not been removed.
      
Turkey's Health Ministry said on Jan. 27 authorities were unable to send ambulances to the location citing ongoing attacks by the militants as well as the trenches, the barricades and land mines in the town. It said authorities had asked that the wounded be transported to a safe area that ambulances have access to and claimed that the wounded or their relatives were refusing to cooperate.
      
On Jan. 27, Human Rights Watch raised concerns over the civilian casualties, faulting the government for not releasing numbers or facilitating urgent medical evacuations for trapped civilians.
      
"Many people have died in circumstances which are extremely difficult to scrutinize because of the curfews" and a broader crackdown on the media, said HRW senior Turkey researcher Emma Sinclair-Webb.
      
Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş told parliament on Jan. 26 the security forces were taking utmost care to "distinguish between the terror organization and the civilians and to ensure that the battle is being waged within the rule of law."