Kurdish villages depopulated by Turkey

Until the 1970s, about 70% of the Kurdish population of Turkish Kurdistan inhabited one of the approximately 20,000 Kurdish villages.{{Cite book|last=O'Shea|first=Maria T.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SvEfmAEACAAJ|title=Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan|date=2004|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-94766-4|location=|pages=160|language=en}} But by 1985, only 58% of the population were still living in the rural areas and much of the countryside in Kurdish populated regions had been depopulated by the Turkish government, with Kurdish civilians moving to local centers such as Diyarbakır, Van, and Şırnak, as well as to the cities of western Turkey and even to western Europe. The causes of the depopulation were in most cases the Turkish state's military operations and to a lesser extent attacks by the PKK on villages it deemed defended by collaborators of the Turkish Government. Often Kurds had to decide whether to become a member of the state-sponsored Village Guards, be deported or else they could face attacks by the PKK. Human Rights Watch has documented many instances where the Turkish military forcibly evacuated villages, destroying houses and equipment to prevent the return of the inhabitants. An estimated 3,000 Kurdish villages in Southeast Anatolia were virtually wiped from the map, representing the displacement of more than 378,000 people.{{cite web|url= https://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/turkey0305/3.htm#_Toc97005223 |title=Still critical |publisher=Human Rights Watch|access-date=2007-09-12|date=March 2005 |volume=17|issue=2|page=3}} During the 1990s, the Turkish military reportedly deployed the US manufactured helicopters Sikorsky and Cobra to drive out the Kurdish population from the villages.{{Cite journal|last=McKiernan|first=Kevin|author-link=Kevin McKiernan|date=1999-03-01|title=Turkey's War on the Kurds|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2968/055002008|journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists|language=en|volume=55|issue=2|pages=26–37|doi=10.2968/055002008|issn=0096-3402}}

According to the Humanitarian Law Project, 2,400 Kurdish villages have been destroyed and 18,000 Kurds have been executed by the Turkish government. Other estimates have put the number of destroyed Kurdish villages at over 4,000. In total, up to 3,000,000 people (mainly Kurds) have been displaced.{{Cite journal|last=Gunter|first=Michael M.|author-link=Michael Gunter|date=1998-09-01|title=An Interview with the PKK's Ocalan|url=https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/JCS/article/view/11697/12451|journal=Journal of Conflict Studies|language=en|issn=1715-5673}}

The Kurdish Human Rights Project divides the depopulation (evacuation) of villages in 5 phases.{{Cite book|last=Jongerden|first=Joost|title=The Settlement Issue in Turkey and the Kurds: An Analysis of Spatial Policies, Modernity and War|date=2007-05-28|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-474-2011-8|pages=82|language=en}}

• The initial phase between 1985 and 1989
• The phase of centralization during 1990–1991
• the phase of the systematic village evacuation between 1992 and 1993
• the phase of the escalation of the village evacuation in 1994
• between 1995 and 2001, further villages were depopulated

An estimated 1,000,000 people are still internally displaced {{as of|lc=y|2009}}.{{cite web|author=Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) – Norwegian Refugee Council |url=http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/(httpCountrySummaries)/66D21F80E3A69E41C125732200255E35?OpenDocument&count=10000 |title=Need for continued improvement in response to protracted displacement |publisher=Internal-displacement.org |access-date=15 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110131234512/http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/%28httpCountrySummaries%29/66D21F80E3A69E41C125732200255E35?OpenDocument&count=10000 |archive-date=31 January 2011 }}

{{Expand section|date=January 2022}}

• November – Kelekçi village destruction

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre stated in 2009 that the Turkish government has taken "notable" steps to address the internal displacement situation. These include commissioning a national survey on the number and conditions of IDPs, drafting a national IDP strategy, adopting law on compensation, and putting together a comprehensive pilot action plan in Van Province and 13 other south-eastern provinces addressing rural and urban situations of displacement.

List of villages which have been depopulated as of 2023:{{Cite web |title=Address Based Population Registration System Results |url=https://biruni.tuik.gov.tr/medas/?kn=95&locale=en |access-date=15 February 2023 |website=Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu |language=tr}}

List of villages that have been repopulated after 2007:

• Kurds in Turkey
• Kurdish villages destroyed during the Iraqi Arabization campaign
• December 2015–February 2016 Cizre curfew

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/world/kurds-are-finally-heard-turkey-burned-our-villages.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm Kurds Are Finally Heard: Turkey Burned Our Villages]
• [http://www.institutkurde.org/en/institute/hrights.php THE DEFENCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS]

{{Anti-Kurdism|state=expanded}}

{{Kurdish–Turkish conflict}}

{{Authority control}}

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Category:Persecution of Kurds in Turkey

Category:Former populated places in Turkey

Category:Turkish settlements

Category:Kurdistan Workers' Party insurgency

Category:Internal migration

Category:Kurdish refugees

Category:Forcibly depopulated communities