The Pazarcık District Office has confiscated the crisis center set up by the HDP and regional associations in the village of Hasankoca to coordinate earthquake relief. District Administrator Mustafa Hamit Kıyıcı came to the center accompanied by military officials and announced that he would appoint a coordinator to the work. The HDP members and other volunteers refused to accept the decision and left the center with loud protests.

The co-chair of the Democratic Party (HDP), Pervin Buldan, called a press conference in a hotel in Amed (Diyarbakir) after the relief supplies were confiscated and sharply criticized the prevention of relief measures for the earthquake victims.

Pervin Buldan and other HDP MPs in Amed

“Our volunteers spent ten days trying to distribute the aid supplies that had arrived to the people of Pazarcık from a large warehouse in the village of Hasankoca. According to the information we received a few hours ago, the trustee and the district governor of Pazarcık, together with the local authorities, stormed this building and the warehouse where the relief supplies were collected and threatened our volunteers with arrest," the Kurdish politician said on the matter.

The state wants to stop the HDP aid campaign

Buldan pointed out that the state wanted to stop the HDP aid campaign. "Those who have been absent since the earthquake began, especially in the first few days, and have not helped our people in any way, have now started an initiative asking for help and in particular to stop the HDP aid campaign. I would like to appeal to the government: while people are suffering from hunger, cold, earthquake, major disaster, it is not in anyone's power and no one has the right to prevent this aid. We will continue to do our best to ensure that the population is supplied with aid. Nothing justifies the repression, the obstruction of aid and the appointment of a trustee. We will never allow the aid provided by the HDP, NGOs and other parties to be prevented by government agencies or attributed to themselves.”

For the first two days, the state was nowhere to be seen

Buldan continued: "In the first two days after the earthquake, the police, government and military were nowhere to be seen. Now we see soldiers, law enforcement and local chiefs going there to raid warehouses and stop aid. That is unacceptable.” Aid deliveries from other provinces organized by the HDP were blocked from the beginning, and entire trucks were confiscated by the AFAD disaster control agency.