On 28 December 2011, 34 persons living in the Roboski village of Hakkari’s Uludere district near the border with Iraq, including 17 children, were killed by a Turkish airstrike. Although 10 years have passed since the massacre took place, the families of victims have been carrying out their legal struggle because justice hasn’t been delivered yet.  “The fire inside us will never die even if 100 years pass,” the families say and call on the AKP to face up to what happened 10 years ago.

MEDİNE MAMEDOĞLU

Şirnex – On the night of December 28, 2011, the Turkish Armed Forces bombed the villagers crossing the Iraqi border. 34 persons, including 19 children under 18, were killed. While Servet Encü survived injured from the bombardment, 28 of the killed villagers were from the Encü family. The next morning, relatives searched for the missing people and found the bodies of the victims. The bodies, some of them burnt beyond recognition or dismembered, were transported by their families.

"It would be wrong to expect an official apology”

A delegation consisting of members of the Human Rights Association (IHD) and the Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for the Oppressed (MAZLUMDER) went to the village to investigate the incident. The delegation described the killing of 34 people in Uludere as an extrajudicial execution. On January 3, 2012, Bülent Arınç, former Deputy Prime Minister, issued a statement and said, “It would be wrong to expect an official apology”. He also stated that compensations would be paid but the families refused the money.

A special investigative commission was established at the Turkish Grand National Assembly to investigate the Roboski massacre. And the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) filed a lawsuit against the Turkish government at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Commission prepared a report and claimed that there had been no deliberate intent by the officials involved. Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) submitted a parliamentary proposal to investigate the Roboski Massacre but the proposal was rejected by AKP-MHP votes.

In June 2013, the Public Prosecution of Diyarbakır issued a decision of non-jurisdiction on the case due to “reckless homicide” and sent the case to Military Prosecution of General Staff. Military Prosecution decided not to prosecute the case further in January 2014. Lawyers of the victims’ families objected to the decision, but they were rejected.

Families applied to the Constitutional Court

After the decision of non-jurisdiction, the families of victims brought the case before the Constitutional Court. In a preliminary administrative examination of the application and its attachments, the court demanded some missing documents in the application be submitted yet the application was rejected on February 24, 2015, due to “outstanding documents not being submitted in time.”

“No words are enough to describe what happened”

10 years have passed since the Roboski Massacre took place. Many songs have been written about the Roboski Massacre and many documentaries have been shot about it but no words are enough to describe what happened on December 28, 2011. “Even if ten years or a hundred years pass, we feel like that the massacre took place just yesterday,” the mothers of Roboski say.

“I will never forget my son’s dismembered body”

16-year-old Bilal Encü was one of the 34 persons killed on December 28, 2011. His mother Halime Encü says she will grieve the death of her son forever. “My children look at their brother’s photographs and ask me where their brother is and what happened to him. They were only children. If what they did was a crime, they should have arrested them. At least, we could have seen them once a month or year. I have felt pain for 10 years. The fire inside us will never die even if 100 years pass. There were children aged between 10 and 15. They were innocent. I will never forget my son’s dismembered body even if 100 years pass,” she told us.

“We don’t want money but justice”

Halime Encü pointed out that their demand for justice has been heard all around the world but not by the AKP and she criticized the policy of immunity by saying, “We lost our 34 people but no one has been punished or prosecuted until now. Only Kurds and poor people die in this country. I will never forgive the killers of my son. Those who killed these people shouldn’t go unpunished. The state wants to give us compensation instead of arresting the perpetrators. We don’t want money but justice.”

“They killed one of my sons and arrested two of them”

Halime Encü continued to talk as follows: “They killed our children. We identified them from their clothes because their bodies were dismembered. The state knew that they were smugglers. After killing one of my sons, they arrested two of my sons.”

“We demand justice”

13-year-old Erkan Encü was one of the children killed in 2011. His mother Felek Encü told us their children were killed in that pitch-black night. “I go through the same thing every December after the massacre. On the anniversary of the massacre, everybody posts the same thing, “We will not allow the responsible for the massacre to go unpunished” but they don’t do anything. Kenan Evren died peacefully. The same thing will happen. The AKP should face up to what happened 10 years ago. Even then they didn't apologize to us. We spend our lives in pain,” she said.

Tomorrow: Bombs first burned the heart of Muhammed’s mother