Families who the AKP and Erdoğan government want to evacuate from their homes in Sur say the AKP and Erdoğan government want to bring them down because they couldn’t make them surrender, but that they will resist.

Speaking to ANF, Fesih Yılmaz, Mehmet Yıldız, Ayşe Aydın and Türkan Umur who live in Sur said they have no place to live if their homes are torn down, and that they will live in tents if they have to but they won’t leave Sur.

“THEY WANT TO EXILE US BECAUSE WE RESIST”

Fesih Yılmaz earns a living as a baker. He said he has lived and worked in Sur for 26 years and added: “They want to buy our homes for 50-60.000 liras and sell us back at 500-600.000.”

Yılmaz said the state knows that they can’t afford such numbers and that their aim is to push the residents out of Sur. Yılmaz continued: “I have two children in school, one in university. If they tear this place down, where will I live? How will my children go to school? We don’t accept this tyranny. We will resist until the end, we must stand together and act together to succeed.

“THE STATE SHOULD LEAVE US ALONE”

Türkan Umur said her roots are in Sur and added: “We were born in Sur, we grew up here, our children were born here. We don’t have anywhere else to go. What does this state want from us? They should leave us alone. They can’t intimidate us. They can’t make us surrender by confiscating our homes.”

Umur said the state already engaged in a great war crime and destruction in Sur, and on top of that they continued to punish the people and commit more crimes.

“I WILL PUT UP A TENT BUT I WILL NOT LEAVE”

Ayşe Aydın said they don’t have anywhere to go if their homes are demolished and stated that if there is a demolition, she will put her belongings in a tent and will continue to live in Sur. Aydın said nobody was supporting them and called on the people of Sur: “Let’s resist together, without our unity and solidarity we can’t overcome this attack and demolition.”

“THIS DECREE IS POLITICAL”

Mehmet Yıldız said the people of Sur are poor but they resisted the state forces’ horrors until the end, and stressed that the state wanted to punish the people of Sur with the demolitions because they couldn’t break the resistance. Yıldız pointed out that the demolition decree is political and said: “As this is a political decision, we will resist until the end and we will not surrender, we will not leave Sur.”