She added that 16 civilians had been killed in the Sirnak province.
Tensions between Ankara and the Kurds escalated in July 2015 as fighting between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Kurdish pro-independence organization considered to be terrorist by Ankara, and the Turkish army resumed. Ankara has imposed several round-the-clock curfews in Kurdish-populated towns, preventing civilians from fleeing the regions where the military operations are taking place.
"In Cizre at the moment four districts are totally destroyed. Ten thousand houses are in a completely unlivable condition, including those buildings that did not come under shelling. But the Turkish troops entered those houses, marauded and made everything they could to make the buildings unlivable, on purpose," Tasdemir said.
"They want to clean the place from the Kurds," she added.
In 2013, the Turkish government initiated a peace process with the PKK. Talks were jeopardized in 2014, as Ankara was reluctant to help Kurds to fight the Islamic State terrorist group, outlawed in many countries, including Russia, when the jihadist group attacked the city of Kobani. The city remained under the siege by IS militants from September 2014 until January 2015, which caused some 400,000 Kurds to flee into Turkey.
