The small town of Sirnak in Turkey resembled a large, dusty village administratively attached to Siirt province when it was made a provincial center in 1990. It eventually became a focal point of Turkey’s struggle against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), always staying in the headlines while the trenches were dug and barricades erected by the PKK’s urban warfare outfit, the Civil Protection Units (YPS).
A curfew was imposed on Sirnak on March 14, and a massive operation was launched to oust Kurdish militants. The operation lasted 80 days, but the curfew remained in place for nine months mainly because buildings damaged in the security operation were collapsing. It was initially thought that only a few buildings would need to be demolished, but a count after the lifting of the curfew determined that some 2,044 buildings were unusable.