“As if it happened only yesterday”: Turkey’s forced displacement policy in the 90s
Children's screams, women's laments, burned and destroyed houses, smoke rising among the ruins... Sohbet Ay is only one of the thousands of victims of Turkey’s forced displacement policy in the 90s. She was forced to leave her village but returned after two years because she missed her village. She lives in her village after rebuilding her house. “I will never forget those days,” Sohbet said, “No one can force us to leave our village anymore.”
MEDİNE MAMEDOĞLU
Amed – Hundreds of villages were destroyed and burned down in the Kurdish region of Turkey in the 1990s. Thousands of people were forcibly displaced from their villages. Çukurca (Çirike) village of Amed’s Kulp district is one of these villages. Soldiers burned the village but the villagers returned to their village and rebuilt it.
“I remember everything as if it happened only yesterday”
Sohbet Ay’s house was also burned by soldiers. She remembers everything as if it happened yesterday. She said that she never forgets the children’s screams and the fire. Every time she sees the ruins of destroyed houses, she lives that day again. “I was born, grew up, and got married in this village. They (soldiers) came to our village as they did in every village in this region. They forcibly took people out of their houses and burned the houses. When they entered our house, my mother-in-law blocked them and said, ‘You cannot burn our house before killing me’. My mother-in-law didn’t move despite threats.”
“We returned to our village after two years”
Sohbet said they couldn’t return to their village for two years. After two years, they rebuilt their house and returned to their village. “They destroyed and burned after my mother-in-law said, ‘You cannot burn our house before killing me’. Most of the houses in the village were burned and destroyed. Still, there are ruins of destroyed and burned houses. We went to the Kulp district center and asked for help to rebuild our house but no one helped us. Most of the villagers moved to Diyarbakır. We lived in Kulp for two years. After two years, we rebuilt our house and returned to our village. I have lived here with my children.”
“No one can force us to leave our village anymore”
“No one lived in the village for two years. After years, people slowly began to return to the village. Now, many people live in the village. They rebuilt their houses. When you are born and grow up in a village, you cannot live in big cities. We couldn’t get used to life in the city. We returned to our village despite everything. No one can force us to leave our village anymore.”