Behind Turkish checkpoints
The town of Silopi in southeastern Turkey has been devastated by monthlong clashes between the security forces and Kurdish militants, with local residents blaming both the government and the rebels for the destruction.
SILOPI, Turkey — The two-story building in the foothills of the Cudi Mountains, not far from the Turkish-Iraqi border, can hardly be called a house anymore. It lies in ruins, hit by shelling from a tank or a howitzer.
“What wrong did I do to deserve this?” an elderly woman laments at the debris. One cannot help but wonder whether this is a scene from Syria. But no, this is Silopi, a town in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Home to some 121,000 people, Silopi saw some of the worst clashes that have raged in the southeast when security forces waged a ferocious campaign against militants of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), the armed youth wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who had sought to gain control in a number of urban areas, digging trenches and erecting barricades to keep the authorities away.
Silopi was placed under a round-the-clock curfew on Dec. 14, effectively cutting it off from the outside world. The security operation there lasted more than a month, before the curfew was partially lifted and journalists were allowed to enter the town on Jan. 19.
