Silvan, Turkey: Sahin Donmez surveys the damage to his house after almost two weeks of street battles between Kurdish militants and the Turkish security forces in the southeastern town of Silvan.
"Look. The fruit of 40 years of work," said Donmez, who fled the town with his family when the fighting began. "Gone up in smoke."
The local authorities imposed a curfew in three key districts of Silvan, a town of around 40,000 in Diyarbakir province, early this month.
It was the latest in a string of ongoing military lockdowns ordered by the authorities in mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey to pursue "anti-terror" operations against suspected militants allied to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
For 12 days, army tanks and elite snipers tracked fighters from the PKK's youth branch, the Patriotic Revolutionist Youth-Movement (YDG-H).
The militants dug ditches and erected barricades in a bid to hit back at the police.
The toll was heavy -- with five Kurdish fighters, an army officer, two police and two civilians killed, according to official figures.
AFP
