The curfew declared in the city centre of Sirnak on 14th March continues. Thousands of houses have been destroyed and unavailable to use due to the violent clashes in the city.

Children have been living in tents with their families in Ikizce Village for the past 3 months and are now hoping to return to their homes as soon as possible. The children who haven’t attended school for 3 months explained their hardship to Ilke News Agency.

“It’s Eid soon so we want to buy clothes and sweets but by the looks of it we won’t be able to”

The families with good financial status moved to Mersin but we have been forced to live in tenants said Gulsen Batmaz in year 6. She added, “There has been a curfew in Sirnak for 3 months so we had to move here too. The families with good financial status moved to Mersin and rented houses there. We on the other hand are not in good financial status so we had to move here and live in tents. We had to leave our schools and so we couldn’t sit our exams either. We want to study too because we have dreams too. I wanted to study and become a doctor. We miss our friends and teachers. We have difficulties finding clean drinking water here. It’s Eid soon so we want to buy clothes and sweets but by the looks of it we won’t be able to.”

“Children have all the load here in the tents”

Helin Batmaz underlined that the are suffering from shortage of clean water and she added that, “We came from Sirnak and we living in tenants here in Ikizce Village. There is a curfew declared in Sirnak. We are suffering from shortage of clean water. We have to drink from the river. We are very behind from our education too. We thought we would be able to go school when we came here but unfortunately we are not able to. We as the children have all the load. It is the month of Ramadan and we don’t know what our parents are going to do. We sometimes think we are going to die because we can’t find drinking water. There is also shortage of toilets so we cant even meet our basic needs here.”

“It is very hot during the day in the tent but it is too cold at night”

“Coming from Sirnak we have been forced to live in tents. It is very hot during the day in the tent but it is too cold at night. There are no play areas for us. I miss my friends and teachers. Nobody takes care of us here. We want to return to our home as soon as possible” said Delal Sorgut. (ILKHA)