Another town victim of Turkey’s silent war against the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK), Nusaybin was recently completely demolished by the Turkish army. In Nusaybin alone, 10 PKK militants and 2 civilians have been killed by security forces. The city itself lays in ruins as part of Turkey’s policy of heavily shelling and bombing cities filled with Kurdish guerrilla fighters.
Nusaybin is but one of many cities victim to fighting between the Kurdish militants and Turkish security forces, across southeastern Turkey, which is populated by predominantly Kurds. The conflict goes back and forth with actual fighting between the two factions in the southeast, and suicide bombings conducted by the PKK in more populated areas like Istanbul and Ankara.
Anywhere from 400 – 1500 Turkish security forces have been killed while almost over 3,500 Kurdish militants have fallen in the fighting. Almost 300 civilians have been killed in the conflict, both from suicide bombings and from battles fought in Kurdish regions. A quarter of a million people have been displaced.
According to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, 1.3 million people have been affected by the conflict.
