A series of videos posted online appear to depict an incident where a number of civilians who were waving a white flag of surrender came under fire, with many of them killed.
The victims, as reported by The Daily Sheeple, were said to be Iraqi and Turkish Kurds in the town of Cizre, where they may have been ambushed by Turkish troops.
The very graphic videos (there is your warning) were first reported by Russia Today (RT.com), which is often aligned with the Russian government. Understand also that tensions between Russia and Turkey have increased dramatically following the downing of a Russian attack plane by Turkish F-16s in November.
Still, the series of short video clips in addition to the RT.com report that were posted on social media does indeed show a procession of people shuffling along a street, with a few of them raising white flags while others pushed a cart in an effort to recover bodies of others shot and killed in recent fighting. You can see in the videos that the walls of nearby buildings are pock-marked with holes, perhaps from bullets. And at one point the videographer showed a tank parked at the end of the street on which the procession traveled.
Then, as they continued to walk, gunfire erupted, and many people could be seen hunkering down and seeking cover.
As further reported by The Daily Sheeple:
Other footage shows several people lying motionless on the ground with blood spilling from them, as gasps and screams of horror come from the background.
The stated location is the Kurdish city of Cizre, which appears consistent with the Turkish-language graffiti shown in the video and the ice cream shop of the ‘Algida’ brand – which is only sold in Italy, Eastern Europe and Turkey.
RT.com admitted that the network could not immediately verify the context and circumstances surrounding the killings, but one version of events claims that the Kurd civilians were fired upon by Turkish troops that had been deployed to crack down on suspected militants in the south and southeast of the country. Turkey, like Iraq, has a long history of clashes with the Kurdish minority in the region.
Another version says that Kurdish militants may have been hiding among the civilians and using them for cover and then opened fire at Turkish forces, who then returned fire. But the footage posted online did not appear to show anyone in the crowd of civilians with a firearm or other weapon.
In August Ankara launched a military operation into Kurdish-held areas. The Turkish government began imposing curfews and battling against fighters of the militant Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK, which the Turkish government has labeled a terrorist group. Since the crackdown, hundreds of civilians and fighters on both sides are believed to have died.
The crackdown has been roundly criticized by global human rights organizations as wildly disproportionate and a form of collective punishment directed at the Kurds. In recent days one such group, Amnesty International, said the Turks are endangering the lives of 200,000 people who live in areas that are affected by the fighting by disrupting basic services, blocking their ability to move around freely and staging battles and firefights in residential areas.
In a separate report on Feb. 1, RT.com noted that the death toll for Kurds trapped in the Cizre district by Turkish forces is rising:
More than 20 injured people have been trapped in a basement for over a week in the Cizre district of Turkey’s Sirnak Province, where the Turkish military is fighting Kurdish militants. Reports say ambulances have been denied access and six people have died.
“The wounded are confined in a tight space along with those who have died,” Faysal Sariyildiz, Sirnak deputy of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third biggest in the Turkish parliament, told the Cihan news agency.
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