The cemetery of Kurdish martyrs in the village of Sise (Yolçatı) in Lice district of Amed (Diyarbakır) has been devastated several times by the Turkish army forces. In 2015 the military had even bombed the cemetery - both from the ground and from the air. The families laboriously rebuilt the cemetery after each destruction. The last time the cemetery fell victim to a forest fire was at the end of July. The fire is suspected to have been started by soldiers during a military operation that took place in the Sise area.

Today's visit to the cemetery in Sise was therefore combined with a collective clearing out action. In addition to relatives of the martyrs buried there, politicians from the HPD and DBP parties and members of MEBYA-DER, a relief and solidarity association for families who have lost their loved ones, also took part in the reconstruction. First of all, broken gravestones were collected, before sweeping in several places. Mothers in mourning wrote the names of their dead on the bricks they had brought with them, which are to serve as gravestones for the time being. Many of the women sang lamentations - so sad that their voices did not have to add any additional emotions.

"They lack humanity"

One of these mothers is 61-year-old Münevver Pasin. Her son Yılmaz Azad, a guerrilla fighter who lost his life fighting the Turkish army in 1999, is buried in Sise. For his mother, what happened is incompatible with humanity, as she says. "Because people wouldn't attack the bones of dead people." Münevver Pasin wishes the same suffering to those who caused pain in her heart. "For years we have said nothing but peace, peace, and peace again. Yet we continue to be attacked."

Deep sorrow

Rabia Tekin lost her daughter Mizgin in 1992. "Visiting cemeteries used to make us happy," she says. It sounds grotesque, she says, but it is the place where they are closest to their loved ones, even if they are under the ground. "Now we only feel sadness, very deep sadness. For all the graves are destroyed again. In the past they were only smashed, now the graves are even burned down. Do they have the right to do that?", Tekin asks.

Surely respect for the resting place of the dead is one of the fundamental values of humanity. But not in Turkey, which is at war with the dead of the Kurdish freedom movement, conducted by Erdoğan. All cemeteries where the dead lie are affected by infamous acts like those in Lice.