The Education Committee of the Martyr Rüstem Cudi Refugee Camp in Maxmur made a press statement at the Martyr Aryen Cudi Park in protest at the Turkish state’s use of chemical weapons against guerrillas in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq).

The event began with a minute’s silence in memory of the martyrs of Kurdistan, after which the press statement was read by a student named Meryem Bulut.

The statement said,

“The occupying Turks, who call Kurds siblings, massacre our people in various parts of the world. The families of the victims cannot even lament in their own language. The genocidal Turkish state, which conducts an immoral occupation campaign, was built on the annihilation of the Kurds. The genocide against the Kurds has been accelerated since the foundation of the Turkish Republic, while the Kurdish language and culture were banned. Kurds have revolted against this atrocity a number of times but their uprisings were brutally suppressed each time and hundreds of Kurds were massacred.

The PKK was not like other uprisings. It resisted all the attacks and atrocities and grew up everywhere. Desperate in the face of the PKK forces, the occupiers burned thousands of villages and murdered thousands of Kurdish intellectuals. Not content with this, they attacked the achievements of the but were faced with the PKK’s resistance despite the existence of the Kurds who sold themselves out.

The occupying Turkish state continued their attacks against Kurdistan using banned weapons. The atrocities of the Turkish state reached their peak under AKP-MHP rule. Today they are using chemical weapons in an attempt to annihilate the resisting forces in Kurdistan. They are attacking the four parts of Kurdistan, destroying the Kurdish youth and the nature of Kurdistan.

As the students and teachers at the Martyr Rüstem Cudi Refugee Camp, we strongly condemn the Turkish atrocity and we call on the people of Kurdistan to stand against this immorality and to bring this repression and persecution to an end.”