Turkish state officials responded to the inquiry on the massacre in the basement of savagery in the Sur neighborhood of Şırnak’s Cizre district that ECtHR had made after the application Human Rights Association President Öztürk Türkdoğan and Libertarian Lawyers Association lawyer Ramazan Demir had made on February 11.

In their response, Ministry of Interior Affairs officials confirmed the execution of people in the basement of a building on Akdeniz Street in Sur neighborhood, and described the massacred civilians including Orhan Tunç and the former HDP Milas Co-President Derya Koç as ‘terrorists.’ State officials also lied about health services and stated that ambulances were sent to the basement but could not retrieve the wounded because of armed fighting in the area. State officials confirmed that the bodies of Orhan Tunç, Derya Koç and Abdulselam Turgut were sent to the Criminal Forensics Institute in Silopi, but did not mention the burning of the bodies.

ANF had made contact with Derya Koç on February 10 before she was executed, where Koç said that 20 wounded civilians were burnt and massacred during the state forces’ blockade. Koç had stated that the condition of the remaining 20 civilians were critical because state forces were shelling the basement and preventing wounded people from receiving medical treatment. Koç had noted that the walls of the basement were beginning to come down due to the state forces’ bombardment, and tear gas was thrown into the rubbles of the basement in order to prevent the wounded civilians from breathing.

So far, 11 applications regarding the basement massacres were filed to the ECtHR, and 4 others to Turkish Constitutional Court. While all these remained inconclusive, ECtHR only took 5 interim measures but the Turkish state has not implemented any of these. By either rejecting or redirecting the applications, ECtHR paved way for the massacres since the Turkish state rejected all of the applications that the Court had redirected.