Turkish Troops Caught on Camera Killing Unarmed Kurds Waving White Flag

Troops Attacked a Funeral Procession in Cizre

Adding to growing international condemnations of the Turkish military crackdown against ethnic Kurdish areas in their southeast, a new video has been released showing Turkish troops firing on a Kurdish funeral procession and killing multiple civilians, including several waving white flags.

Turkish officials, as usual, referred to all the slain as “PKK terrorists,” saying they killed 21 “terrorists” in Cizre, and four others elsewhere in southeast Turkey. They further claimed 524 “terrorists” were slain in the operation since early December.

Back then, Turkey declared an all-day, non-stop curfew in Cizre and some other Kurdish towns, and has been shooting pretty much anybody caught on the streets at any time. The huge civilian death toll has added to unrest, particularly among Kurds,, and led to calls for further crackdowns on both the Kurds and Turkish academics who have criticized the attacks.

While the video evidence of shooting obvious civilians is making the rounds in the international media, so far it does not appear to be reported in the Turkish media. Since the Erdogan government has shut down media outlets as “terrorists” for publishing information unfavorable to the ongoing military operation, this is unsurprising.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.