Ten years on, wounds of Roboski massacre yet to heal
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Ten years after airstrikes by the Turkish military killed 34 Kurds, in an incident known as the Roboski massacre, families of the victims remain furious at the Turkish government's inaction and lack of prosecution of the perpetrators.
The victims were mostly children between the ages of 13 and 18, smuggling cheap petrol and cigarettes on the Kurdistan Region-Turkey border, drawn from the village of Roboski in Turkey’s Sirnak province.
The wounds of the event have yet heal, 10 years later.
"Not just 10 years, if 10,000 years pass, we won't forget our children. They [Turkish authorities] thought they would carry out the massacre and eliminate the Kurds," said Halime Encu, the mother of victim Bilal Encu.
Felek Encu, the mother of victim Erkan Encu, recalled the massacre. She said "it has been ten years since the incident. No document has been issued and we haven't been given anything. We are oppressed because our children have been killed. Some of the mothers have died from their suffering."
Ferhat Encu, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair in Istanbul who lost 28 relatives in the massacre in Turkey's Sirnak province, has accused the Sirnak Bar Association of negligence regarding the killings.
"We handed our dossier to the Sirnak Bar Association. We asked them to follow up on the case. It is up to them to respond and investigate.
"Unfortunately, this has not been accomplished and has been neglected," said Encu.
The former head of the Sirnak Bar Association responded to Encu's statements, instead blaming HDP's Commission on Law Affairs and Human Rights.
"There is no clear criminal; if there is one, it's the HDP's Commission on Law Affairs and Human Rights, because they used to manage the dossier. I am ready to hold a discussion regarding this matter [to clarify this]," said Nucirvan Elci, the former head of Sirnak Bar Association.
The area around the site of the massacre had been the focal point of clashes between the Turkish Army and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish armed group fighting for increased rights for Turkey's Kurdish minority since the 1980s.
The Turkish government has yet to apologize for the incident but has offered compensation to the victims' families. The families of 15 victims have accepted compensation, Ferhat Encu told Rudaw English last year.
Turkey's public prosecutor investigated the massacre under the premise of "death due to negligence", but to no avail, as the case was closed in June 2013 and referred to a martial court.
"The Turkish Army has not been negligent," the Turkish military court ruled, and suspended its investigation of five officers.
The families resorted to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to investigate the perpetrators, which dismissed the case, citing "lack of evidence".
The Human Rights Watch in 2012 blasted Turkish authorities for their inaction, asserting that the government was yet to open an "effective and transparent" investigation into the attack.
Reporting by Ferdi Sak / Additional reporting by Julian Bechocha