Land grab in Turkey's southeast threatens return of minorities
Armed and determined Kurdish tribes seize hundreds of acres of land owned by Christians and Yazidis in southeastern Turkey.
Dressed in a black robe and embroidered cap, Father Yoqin leaned over the rampart of Mor Augin and lowered a hose to a municipal fire truck waiting to pump the weekly water supply up to the mountain monastery. Abandoned for decades, Mor Augin was reopened a couple of years ago as a sign of the Syriac church’s determination to keep the faith alive in its homeland in southeastern Turkey, despite the dwindling numbers of Christians in the region.
On a clear day, Father Yoqin can see across the Turkish border and Kurdish-held territory in Syria all the way into Iraq, where Mount Sinjar rises from Ninevah province in the distance. But the Syriac monk does not need to look that far to see his people endangered. A glance down to the plains rolling out below the mountain will suffice: Most of the monastery’s own lands there — hundreds of acres — have been seized by Kurdish tribes that are armed and determined to hang on to them.
This is not an isolated case, according to Serhat Karasin, a lawyer in Diyarbakir. Recent land grabs targeting Christians and Yazidis in southeastern Turkey number in the thousands, by his estimate.
Karasin, who has represented the monastery in its long-running attempts to recuperate its properties, has just returned from talks with district officials, the provincial governorate and the Interior Ministry in Ankara on behalf of the Yazidi village of Efse, not far from Mor Augin, whose former inhabitants are being prevented from returning to their hamlet by the armed forces of a neighboring Kurdish tribe.
