After a curfew imposed on the Omeryan region in Mardin countryside three days ago, a dozen hectares of forest burnt down completely. The fire that reached the villages in the area could only be extinguished with great effort by the villagers. One of the villages affected by the flames is Pınarbaşı (Serêkaniyê). Not a single animal survived the fires unscathed there. There is no garden that is not burned.

Terfa Yıldırım, one of the inhabitants of the village of Pınarbaşı, told JinNews that there are only a few families left in the village and these families are wanted to be driven out by means of repression.

Yıldırım talks about the day when, because of the smoke, they realized that a fire had broken out: "The wind was very strong. We noticed the fire at nine o'clock in the morning and it had already reached the village by four o'clock in the afternoon. We cried for help, but no one came. Finally, my son begged the fire department. They came, sprayed water once or twice and left. The fire was not even contained a bit."  

The fire has damaged homes and killed animals, says Yıldırım and adds: "They do it every year. Every year they burn everything here. Because of these fires we can neither plant trees nor feed the animals."

The woman complains that the repression has been going on since the 90s: "First they burned down the villages. Now they secretly burn everything so we go away. We experience that every year. They put fires here every year. We cannot harvest anything from these vineyards. There's nothing they do not do so that we disappear and nobody stays here. But we will only have to die to go away from here. As long as there is still a little piece of ours left, we will stay here. If they want to clear the village, then they will have to kill us all.”