Curfew imposed after deadly clan feud in southeast Turkey

ISTANBUL, Turkey – The Turkish authorities on Monday, July 21, imposed a curfew in the southeastern town of Hakkari after violent clashes blamed on a feud between two Kurdish families left one person dead.

The quarrel between the Pinyanisi and Ertosi clans turned violent on Sunday after hundreds of people got involved, attacking each other with knives and stones in the streets of the town of some 80,000 close to the borders with Iran and Iraq, media reports said.

Mustafa Er, a 49-year-old father of nine, was killed in the ensuing shootout while three people from his family were injured, the Dogan news agency reported.

The Hakkari governor’s office declared an open-ended curfew after security forces – who fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd – failed to stop the violence.

As of Monday afternoon, the curfew was still in place and the authorities said it would stay in force until further notice.

Video footage showed families with children scurrying for sanctuary in shops and restaurants, some of which were damaged in the clashes.

Dozens of paramilitary troops were deployed in the city to prevent any reprisals and all public buildings were closed, Dogan added.

Clan feuds are frequent in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast, where guns are traditionally seen as a legitimate way to resolve disputes and preserve honour.

In the bloodiest such incident in recent years, 44 people, among them six children and 17 women, were killed in Mardin province in 2009 when men from one family attacked a wedding party at which the family of another family had gathered.

Clans in the southeast do not include only close relatives and some are estimated to have hundreds of thousands of members. – Rappler.com