Turkish airstrikes killed 34 Kurds including 19 children from Roboski village on December 28, 2011. On the sixth anniversary of the massacre several hundreds of people gathered in Roboski Martyrs’ Cemetery where all 34 victims are buried.

Berdan Öztürk, the co-chair of Democratic Society Congress (DTK); Serpil Kemalbay, the co-chair of Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and HDP MPs Meral Danış Beştaş, Mithat Sancar, Leyla Birlik and Aycan İrmez attended the ceremony along with the families of victims and activists.

Following observation of one-minute silence in memory of the victims, Veli Encü, the head of the Roboski Association, gave a speech about the massacre and families’ never-ending struggle for justice. 

Recalling that people who just wanted to earn their lives were killed by bombs in Roboski, Encü stressed that they as families of the victims will continue to raise their voice to demand justice.

Encü claimed that the soldiers were informed about the mass killing and said, “After the massacre they prevented the access of ambulances. Most of our wounded died due to loss of blood.”

“Erdoğan and all the ministers said that the perpetrators will be brought to justice. But for the past six years the justice hasn’t been done. If the perpetrators of Roboski had been put on trial maybe other the cases of other massacres would have been solved too. Today instead of watering the tree of justice the government waters the thorn of cruelty” Encü said.

The co-chair of DTK, Berdan Öztürk also spoke in the ceremony and offered condolences to the families of victims. Öztürk said they hoped that the perpetrators would have been brought to justice but Turkish state now doesn’t even allow people to commemorate the victims.

Speaking after, HDP co-chair Serpil Kamalbay said that democracy and peace can only be established after the massacre is solved.

“As you all know the 33-bullet massacre was hidden from the society for years. We didn’t face with that massacre. The perpetrators didn’t give an account for their actions. If they had done, maybe these massacred wouldn’t have happened. Now the MPs who give a struggle to bring those responsible for this massacre to justice, are arrested. But we will never refrain from calling them to account for their actions. We will continue our struggle until those responsible give an account to the people for their actions.”

Kemalbay also pointed out Turkish state’s abduction of bodies from a cemetery in Bitlis and said, “This one-man mentality is so degraded that it’s now removing corpses from graves. Erdogan is wearing the boots of military commanders of the September 12 coup. He is posing hand in hand with a war criminal in Sudan. It’s a shame that he is walking around with a person who killed hundreds of people”.

The commemoration event ended after a letter from imprisoned HDP MP Ferhat Encü was read.