On the evening of December 28, 2011 the Turkish air force bombed a party of Kurdish smugglers consisting of mostly young boys, killing 34 people. Following this incident, Turkish authorities promised a full and fair investigation, though nothing of the sort took place. Soon Turkish politicians and military officials began a cover up and began blaming the victims.
I visited Roboski and began asking questions about the incident, as well as the survivors and relatives quest for justice. I followed up my story with several visits. Soon I realised I was dealing with a microcosm of Turkey’s Kurdish question, as the Turkish state refused to be accountable for the killings that had taken place, expecting the issue to go away. The Roboski incident soon became one more item in Turkey’s catalog of human rights abuses, especially where its Kurdish citizens are concerned.
Buy the book in Dutch here, and in Turkish here.