ANKARA, Turkey – First Halil Encu lost a foot after stepping on a Turkish mine, then he lost his brother in the Roboski massacre of 2011 and five months ago the young Kurd lost his disability pension, which was stopped by Turkish authorities.
Encu, 27, believes he is being punished for refusing the compensation offered by Ankara for the 34 villagers killed in the December 2011 attack by the Turkish air force on the village of Roboski.
The district governor of Roboski explained the reason for Encu losing his pension. “If you needed money, you would have accepted to get the compensation for the incident,” Encu says he was told.
The families of the 34 killed in the Roboski incident have refused the compensation offered by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), insisting they will not settle for money and instead want those behind the attack brought to justice.
Nearly two years after the incident there has been no action against the perpetrators of the massacre, and only the unjust treatment of victims’ relatives continues. Encu was given a disability report by the Hakkari State Hospital after his mine accident.
He says that his 33 relatives and brother had forced into eking out a living through border smuggling due to financial difficulties.
“The pressures and threats against us have increasingly continued after that massacre. I have been the last one (to face the pressures),” Encu says. “I have three children and my only source of income was my disability pension but they stopped it,” he laments. “How can I work like this? I had a brother and he used to take care of us, but he was massacred and I could not even find the pieces of his dead body.”
On December 28, 2011, Turkish F-16 fighter jets launched an attack on the Roboski (Uludere) district of Sırnak province, killing 34 people, including 17 children. The victims were transporting cheap cigarettes, diesel oil and the like into Turkey when the bombing started. The bodies of some of the victims were burnt beyond recognition or dismembered.
The AKP government has not provided any written or verbal apology for the massacre of the civilians, some of whom were as young as 12.
