RT dug deep into this case and showed the map of Ankara's offensive against Kurds. While Ankara continues to crash members of the PKK, some say the Turkish government is waging a full-scale war in southeastern Turkey seeking to get rid of all the Kurds living in the region.
Turkish soldiers killed at least 60 people on February 8, 2016 in the town of Cizre. Other sources claim that government forces burned 150 Kurds alive that day. Meanwhile, the Turkish government keeps insisting that everyone who was killed during the bloodbath were terrorists, RT reported.
"I think thousands of civilians were killed in southeastern Turkey during the operation. Turkish forces are particularly brutal. They impose a curfew in an area and then shell it using heavy artillery. In the basement floor of one of the buildings [in Cizre] 150 people were killed in a fire," RT correspondent William Whiteman said.
#Cizre #Cizîr pic.twitter.com/vaFon5NoRj
— Fırat Bilgin (@firatbiIgin) March 4, 2016
To obtain the information, Whiteman had to secretly travel to southeastern Turkey pretending to be a journalist of a Western news agency, as Ankara wouldn't allow RT and other Russian media to travel into the area.
According to Whiteman, most PKK fighters operate in mountainous areas around cities, while the army ends up killing civilians in cities in an attempt to fight militants.
"The Turkish government tries to portray everyone whom they kill as terrorists," the RT correspondent told Lenta.ru in an interview.
Kurdish Town Under Siege
In the town of Silopi, the Turkish Army used tanks when cleaning up the city. Authorities imposed a curfew in Silopi in December 2015, which was eventually lifted in January of 2016.
"Turkish tanks on the streets of Silopi in Kurdistan. They attack peaceful Kurdish civilians instead of [Daesh]," one of the city's residents wrote on Twitter.
Tanklar Yenişehir mahallesine tekrardan giriş yaptı. Çatışmalar siddetlendi. #CizreyeSilopiyeSesVer pic.twitter.com/myjkqkiZmW
— Faruk Encu (@DihaEncu) December 16, 2015
The city of Nusaybin has also been under the siege of Turkish forces. In November 2015, according to Ankara, several civilians died as a result of shell fragment wounds during a curfew. However, local residents said the army killed a few dozen civilians and a lot more were wounded.
When two weeks ago the government decided to extend the curfew in Nusaybin for an unknown period of time, most residents began to run for their lives and fled the city, RT said.
#BREAKING Clashes in #Nusaybin continue. VIDEO: https://t.co/pJX3UaO72C pic.twitter.com/VnJalHg1Bp
— The Turkish Republic (@TheTurkishRep) March 21, 2016
The Turkish government also extended a curfew for an unknown period of time in the city of Yuksekova on March 13. All 70,000 residents are now stuck in the city, as Ankara ordered that nobody leaves or enters Yuksekova. Based on information on social media, the Turkish Army is already sending heavy military vehicles, RT said.
Yet more curfews declared i southeast #Turkey's Yuksekova Nusaybin pic.twitter.com/8RSy0s2Uc0
— Alberto Allen (@albertoallen) March 13, 2016
The standoff began after a ceasefire between the Turkish government and the PKK broke down last summer. The PKK has been fighting for Kurdish independence from Ankara since 1984. The group, which the Turkish government considers as a terrorist organization, seeks to create a Kurdish state in parts of Turkey and Iraq.
