Nine years on, Kurdish villagers recount horrific loss in Turkey’s Roboski massacre

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Nine years have passed since the massacre of 34 Kurdish people, mostly children, in the village of Roboski, but memories of the massacre remain vivid in the minds of the victims’ families. 

Ferhat Encu lost 11 members of his family in the massacre in Turkey's Sirnak province. He told Rudaw English about the moment he received the  devastating news from his father. 

“It was around 5am. My father called me on the phone. He told me that an earthquake had rocked the village. He was referring to the massacre,” Encu told Rudaw English on Monday, the ninth anniversary of the tragedy.

“I was hit with a sudden and great sorrow when I heard this bad news. So I began heading to the village,” he said, adding that he was studying at the time at a university in Adana - more than 700 kilometers away.

“When I arrived in the village, I saw my mother crying for her children. I cannot describe the scene. It was like the end of the world and all you could hear were cries.”

This was December 28, 2011, when 38 Kurds, mostly children between the ages of 13 and 18, were smuggling cheap petrol and cigarettes from the town of Zakho, across the border in the Kurdistan Region. They divided into groups to avoid being targeted by Turkish airstrikes – a strategy that would fail. 

F-16 jets, taking off from Diyarbakir province, bombed the group that day, killing 34 villagers. The area had been the focal point of clashes between the Turkish Army and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – a Kurdish armed group which has struggled for increased rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority since the 1980s. 

"It's a group of 30 to 40 people. There are mules and people. How can we know who is who from that height? It's impossible. The Turkish Armed Forces fulfilled its duty sincerely,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said about the bombardment. 

However, he has also met with the families, promising to punish the perpetrators - but little action has been taken. 

"Erdogan told us that he wouldn't allow the perpetrators to go unpunished, but they did. We won't stop searching for justice until the guilty pay for their crimes," Mehmet Encu, who lost his son and two brothers, told Turkey’s independent Duvar news outlet on Monday. 

 “Nothing has changed in nine years. We have been demanding justice since the first day. 19 of them were children. My son was 13 and this one [one of my brothers] was 15,” he told Rudaw’s Mashallah Dakak.

In 2012, Human Rights Watch blasted Turkish authorities for their inaction – saying the government was yet to open an “effective and transparent” investigation into the attack, one year on.

Ferhat also told Rudaw English that they have met with the president, as well as members of Turkey’s ruling and opposition parties, but their demands - which focus on the punishment of the perpetrators -  remain unfulfilled. 

Turkey’s public prosecutor investigated the incident under the premise of  “death due to negligence” but closed the case in June 2013, referring it to a martial court. 

“The Turkish army has not been negligent,” the Turkish military court ruled, suspending its investigation of five officers. 

In 2017, Turkish officials removed a monument in Diyarbakir memorializing the victims of the massacre.

The families took the case to the constitutional court in 2014, but it was not accepted on the grounds that documents were submitted improperly. They turned to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which dismissed the case due to a “lack of evidence.”

Ferhat, a former lawmaker for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), said his brothers and cousins were among the victims.

“Some of them were students while some others were school dropouts who were busy with domestic work.”

He added that 13 of the 19 children killed in the massacre were members of his immediately family, or close relatives. 

The Turkish government has not apologized for the incident but has offered compensation to the families. The families of 15 victims have accepted compensation, according to Ferhat.

He called on the international community to investigate the case, rather than waiting for the families to seek legal procedures. 

“This massacre has been carried out against human values but the human rights courts - who protect human rights - have not accepted the Roboski case. We do not need to visit them with evidence. They themselves have to decide to do so, as an allied country has committed such a great crime.”

Like previous years, Kurdish politicians and the families of the victims visited the incident area on Monday to commemorate the massacre. HDP co-chair Pervin Buldan also joined them to condemn the attack. 

“This is definitely not an accident, but a clear massacre where the state and government dropped bombs on the people of Roboski knowingly and willingly, and committed it openly.” 

She said that such massacres against Kurds in Turkey are not new, referencing previous massacres against the ethnic group such as the Dersim and Zilan massacres in the early years of the modern Turkish state.    

The HDP, she added, is also guilty of not pursuing justice for the families of the victims. “It is a great failure that we did not carry out the inspection and follow-up process.” 

“We will fully defend the fulfillment of our painful families' demands and stand by them. One day, of course, those responsible for this work will be brought to court and judged.” 

Additional reporting by Dilan Sirwan 

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