Behind the closed doors of Cizre
I am among the destruction of Cizre. A youngster from Cizre came to me and said “Dear Nurcan, all you see is what you can see about Cizre, but there is something worse than this about what you can’t see or despite seeing it, not to writing about Cizre. We want to show you this part.”
I leave my group and follow this youngster.We go to a 5-storey building at the head of Cudi district. The building seems to me in a good condition at first look. There is no destruction. Türk Street is written by the entrance door. Just under it, another inscription can be read: “one of us dies, but a thousand of us awaken”.
Entering the building needs some effort. All the things; chickens and vegetables under the building stank. A construction vehicle were struggling to clean out the trash. We entered the building under a strong stinky smell.
Inside of the building,which has two apartments on each floor, was a complete wreckage. It was not easy to step into the apartments from the stairs. We walk on the ruins, broken windows and trash. All the entrance doors of the apartments were blown up with a blaster. All the apartments were destroyed. Such a destruction that is impossible to restore.
Apart from us, in the building, there are people working in municipality and non-governmental organizations were trying to assess the cost of the damage.
Special forces used these apartments during the military curfew. We entered one of these apartments.
In the apartment, there are women’s underwears on the ground of the bedroom.
The youngster with me told that in all apartments which they destructed, firstly the women’s underwears were displayed. We see also women photos among the underwears. There are used condoms thrown around randomly. Another team which were investigating the building, told us that all the condoms of a market near the building were bought. A holy book stands on the coffee table in a stark contrast with these.
It is easy to understand form the empty water bottles, beverages and the conditions of the apartment that special forces used it for months. Holes were made on the walls to fire through.
We entered another apartment. Red women’s underwear can easily be seen on the ground, again. The youngster told that people who could turn back to their houses, firstly tidy up these underwears because of the shame they had to feel. In one apartment, we recognize that the door of the bedroom was locked to prevent us seeing the underwears. We heard that this building belonged to a civil servant from the West of the country, and when she turned back to his house after the curfew, at least she locked the door of the bedroom where the underwears are displayed because of the shame she felt and moved to another apartment.
The most common inscriptions on the apartment walls were “girls we are here”, “we are here but you”. “Hot one’s house” were written one of the entrance doors of the apartments. There was an axe on the ground. Apparently the staff and the TV were crashed with this axe. All of the valuable things were stolen and plundered. One man told us that even his child’s coins in the piggy bank also were stolen.
In another apartment we moved to the bathroom. Although there is a toilet, they pissed into plastic bottles. How come this could be possible? Did they use the bottles of urine to torture someone by making him to drink the urine? And also we found out that they pissed the walls of the apartments.
The plasma TV was lost, probably it is stolen. The CD cabin was emptied and all the Cds were crashed one by one. There is a lipstick near by the crashed CDs.
The kitchen was in a mess. A letter was left in the kitchen closet, which was written with a good handwriting. The letter said something like that:
“Date: February 8 2016 Time: 11:01
We are the mujahids (warriors) of Turkish Republic’s ‘Victorious Army of Muhammad’
Our guide is always the words of Allah, words of Kur’an-ı Kerim on the way of the continuation of the state and the nation, and the struggle for Allah. I humbly pay the price of your house which I used for my mission. Our good aim is to defend our homeland against non-believers. THANKS TO THE HOMELAND
Sungur Tekir”[1]:
5 liras were attached next to the letter and another note was also written:
“All hail the grandsons of Ertuğrul Gazi… (Father of Osman, who is the leader of the Ottomans)”
What we saw, that it made us sick. We went to the roof to have some fresh air. We could see all Cizre from there. A Turkish flag was flown on the roof. It is obvious from the fireworks on the ground that a celebration was held. There were a lot of mattresses, blankets, broken things, saucepans, empty bottles of beverages, and trash underfoot.
We barely went down the stairs and ran away.
What kind of a mentality is this, what kind of a craziness, and anomaly… What had happened in these houses? Stories are told that people are harassed and even raped behind the closed doors of Cizre .
What I wrote is just about one building!
The damage that includes the destruction, violence, perversion, and firstly can’t be seen from outside the buildings is worse than the visible one. It scares and it is disgusting.
Nurcan Baysal
*As published in T24 on 07.03.2016
[1] Letter is cited much the same.