CENTRAL NEWS
In late 2017, the fascist Turkish state exhumed the corpses of almost 300 HPG, YJA Star, YPG and YPJ fighters who had been buried in the Garzan Burrial Grounds – 282 bodies were later found stacked in boxes under a sidewalk in Kilyos.
In December 2017, the Turkish state ordered the destruction of the Garzan Martyr Burial Ground in the province of Bitlis in occupied North Kurdistan. The cemetery is located near the village of Oleka Jor (Upper Ölek), where hundreds of members of the Kurdish guerrilla organizations HPG and YJA-Star and the YPG and YPJ were buried. Their bodies of the fighters were exhumed after the destruction of the Burial Ground per the order of the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office and taken to the local forensic department.
The fighters were later buried in the Jewish cemetery of Kilyos not far from the seaside resort at the European entrance to the Bosporus. The remains of Kurdish fighters were buried in a separate section for “the nameless,” in plastic boxes under a sidewalk.
An apology for the trauma and suffering
Today, Law and non-governmental organizations in Istanbul held a press conference at the Hill Hotel in Taksim to inform the public on 282 bodies buried under sidewalk in Kilyos Cemetery which had been removed from Garzan Cemetery in Yukari Ölek village of Bitlis.
IHD (Human Rights Association) Istanbul Branch President Gülseren Yoleri said that the corpses should be taken out from the Kilyos sidewalk immediately and added, “Families of the bodies buried under the pavement should be apologized for their trauma and suffering.”
