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Turkish Gov. cut water and electricity from two districts in Sur

367 views · Published 28 May 2017 · 3:07 · Indexed 10 November 2026

Channel: Rudaw English · 2017 · People & Blogs

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SUR, Turkey –Turkish authorities have continued Saturday to demolish houses in two districts of the ancient town of Sur, southeastern Turkey as they say the town’s new design approved by the country’s ministry of municipality, deems it necessary.
 
The local authorities have since cut the electricity and water from the two neighbourhoods of Ali Pasha and Lala in Sur, a town that is part of the Kurdish Diyarbakir province in order to force its residents to leave their homes.
 
“We do not leave because there is no place to go,” a local resident told Rudaw.  "It has been four days and four nights that they have cut the electricity and water. We were hungry yesterday morning when we woke up as we could not prepare Suhur [Ramadan pre-dawn meal] in the dark. There were street lamps but even they cut that as well yesterday. This is a clear oppression [against us].”
 
The population of these neighbourhoods are mainly from villages whose population were forcibly evicted by the Turkish government in early 1990s as the government was engaged in fighting against Kurdish rebels. 
 
“This is the second time the state hurts us,” another resident said. “In Mardin’s Omerya village, again [back in 1990s] they came and told us that either you become [state-backed] village guards, or leave your village and go. We said ‘no. we do not become village guards’. Then they made us leave our villages and set our village and homeland on fire.  And now they have come with the same plan.”
 
The district saw fierce urban fighting between the Turkish security forces and the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for several months last year, leading to what a member of the Turkish parliament called “imparable  damage.”

The Sur mayor office and the Diyarbakir governor office had set a deadline to the residents to evict their homes by May 2. It is based on instruction from the ministry of municipality aimed to redesign the two neighbourhoods.
 
The residents say that the compensation they receive is not enough. They refuse to leave their house.
 
The local government has begun demolishing the houses from May 23, despite the opposition of the residents
 
Three representatives of the rights organization Amnesty International toured Diyarbakir’s Sur district last May, calling it “grim” and a “ghost town.”
 
“Shelled, then bulldozed, then compulsorily purchased. This is called forced displacement,” John Dalhuisen, Amnesty’s Europe and Central Asia director, stated on Twitter then in 2015, noting that just one year ago, 24,000 people lived in the district. “No one does now.”
 
Dalhuisen toured the city along with the Secretary General of Amnesty, Salil Shetty, and Amnesty’s Turkey researcher, Andrew Gardner.
 
One sight they viewed was the four-legged minaret, where Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci was shot and killed in November 2015. The minaret was screened off and the Amnesty researchers had to obtain special permission to go behind the screen.

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