Kids in southeast Turkey: smuggling to survive

SMUGGLING – At the end of December 35 people lost their lives in a bombardment by the Turkish army. Seventeen of them were less than 18 years old. They were smugglers, who brought diesel and sugar from Iraq to Turkey. There is a war going on in the area between Turkey and the PKK, a forbidden Kurdish movement. That makes …

Uludere victims’ families don’t want compensation

GÜLYAZI – The families of the 34 boys and young men killed last week in a bombing bythe Turkish air force, will not consider accepting the compensation the Turkish government is offering them. Prime Minister Erdogan announced on Tuesday that within a few days he would pay the families of the men, who were smuggling across the Iraqi border when …

Sinterklaas for one day in Turkey

ISTANBUL – Dutch Turks who live in Turkey pass the tradition of Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) on to their children. ‘I celebrated Sinterklaas in the Netherlands when I was little, so it’s nice to get my children acquainted with it too’, says one of them, Nermin Celik (38). If you want to see ‘Sint’ in Turkey, can go to the Dutch …

‘At night we have some time for a social life’

Go to school during the summer holidays? In Turkey that’s quite normal. Without ‘summer school’ it’s impossible to get a place at a good university. 

The bell rings, the break is over. Özden Korkmaz (17) and Onur Vural (18) want to hurry off to class immediately, but reluctantly make time for a picture. ‘Now I really have to go, class is …

Mass circumcision, and then it’s time to party

AKYURT – Ninetyfive boys. In four shifts they have been circumcised in a municipality mass circumcision. In the hospital, so efficient and hygienic. And now that all almost a hundred boys are competently released of their foreskin, its party time in Akyurt, a town close to the Turkish capital of Ankara. The mayor: ‘Your first step towards manhood is taken!’

Summer, …

‘They always got back on their feet again’

For monthly magazine OnzeWereld (OurWorld) I regulary contribute to ‘Around the world’, a series in which every month another theme is reported about by several journalists around the world. For July/August the theme was the question: ‘Who do you take as an example in your life?’. I interviewed Delal Seven, and besides that there were stories from Mali, Yemen, Israel …

Turkey: in the tracks of the soldiers

COMMEMORATION – Commemorate a war and fallen soldiers? In Turkey they go a bit further than two minutes of silence. Turkish scouts, for example, re-live the ice-cold conditions endured by their soldiers in the eastern mountains of the country. Fatih (16), high in the mountains in the snow: ‘The soldiers really had a tough time.’

In Turkey it’s not about the …

‘It’s hard in Europe, but even harder in Afghanistan’

More and more illegal  regufeesare trying to reach the European Union via Turkey. They secretly cross the border with Greece. Europe is doing its very best to stop the immigrants.

All of a sudden it gets noisy on the inside square of the ‘detention centre’ for immigrants in Greece. About fifty young men are allowed to leave the centre today and …

Girl imitates suicide and dies

ISTANBUL – In the Turkish city of Istanbul an 8 year old girl died Friday night while trying to imitate a suicide scene from a TV series. She was standing on her bed with her mother’s headscarf around her neck and the heating pipe, and slipped. This was reported on the website of daily paper Radikal …

Families of murderers flee Turkish village

ISTANBUL – A hundred and twenty people from twelve families have fled from Bilge, the Turkish village where on Monday night 44 people were murdered at a wedding ceremony. The families fear for their lives, as they have ties  to the gunmen and they have been threatened with revenge.
Since the killings the families fleeing the village in the southeast of …