A Kurdish man describes fear of military attacks in Turkey

The number of Kurdish fighters killed during a large-scale military offensive in Turkey’s restive southeast has jumped to 102, a security source said on Sunday as the operation entered its fifth day.

On Friday, Turkish forces carried out air strikes against alleged PKK weapons caches and hideouts in northern Iraq, and on Sunday protests erupted against the military operations in Istanbul and Diyarbakir, the largest city in the country’s restive and mainly Kurdish southeast. The government may remain eager to escalate the crackdown, but they are fueling growing opposition with the way they are carrying it out.

A report by Human Rights Watch on Tuesday urged Turkish authorities to scale back security operations in Kurdish areas in the southeast, warning of rapidly rising casualties among civilians.

The operations mark a new escalation in the over three decade conflict with the PKK after a fragile truce collapsed in July after just one-and-a-half years.

Fighting between Turkish security forces and the PKK, including its youth wing, has increasingly focused in urban centres, displacing thousands of residents from the south east.

Witnesses said stone-throwing teens clashed with police in the adjacent neighbourhood of Tarlabasi, a hub for Kurdish immigrants from southeastern Turkey.

HRW also called on the PKK to stop planting explosives in trenches and erecting walls cutting off neighborhoods.

Turkey is on alert after 103 people were killed on October 10 when two suicide bombers ripped through a crowd of peace activists in the capital Ankara, the worst attack in modern Turkey’s history.

Many towns were under curfew and electricity was cut in many Silopi districts as transformers were damaged.

Demirtas said the campaign was targeting locals who were presented as “terrorists”. Food and drinking water were running scarce, residents told Reuters news agency.

The security operations launched Tuesday against the PKK in southeastern Turkey will continue “until public security is established”, the Turkish military said Saturday.

“The Turkish government should rein in its security forces, immediately stop the abusive and disproportionate use of force, and investigate the deaths and injuries caused by its operations”, said Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher at HRW. “A handful of bandits who claim to be defending the people are burning and damaging and terrorising the region…We haven’t allowed them, we will not do so”, Davutoglu said in Ankara.