Hasankeyf – What will remain?
Far away from the capital of Turkey,
only 65km from the border of Syria and Iraq lays the town of Hasankeyf, a
tiny town settled on the Tigris River, part of Mesopotamia which is
widely considered to be the cradle of civilization.
Hasankeyf has a history dating back 12,
000 years and still boosts archaeological treasures from this age. The
population is mostly Kurdish farming communities and survives by
cultivating the fertile soil and fishing in the Tigris River. Early each
morning the people of Hasankeyf rise and take their sheep out from
their mud-brick part-cave dwellings where they have lived for years.
In 1996 the Turkish Government made
public its plan to build a dam in this exact area of Turkey which is
planned to be the biggest of it's kind in the country.
The plan drew widespread criticism from
environmental groups and local people as the dam will displace over
70,000 people and flood the historic area of Hasankeyf and the
surrounding villages.
The dam, which will not only displace
tens of thousands of people, mainly Kurds, from their homes and farms,
will also destroy the environment on which their communities have relied
on for survival for thousands of years. Some Kurdish people argue that they have
faced repression for years. Many also argue that the Turkish Government
does not comply with worldwide human rights laws in regard to the
rights of Kurdish peoples.
The situation in this area is
further
complicated by the presence of the Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the
PKK, a Kurdish militant organisation who are fighting for an autonomous
Kurdistan. The PKK are regarded by the European Union as a Terrorist
organisation. There has been large spread violence between the PKK and
The Turkish Army, including in August and October of this year.(2011)
The local population of Kurdish people state that they want to live
peacefully, without threats from other side.
These communities, most of who work in
agriculture will be re-located to other areas, large cities where they
will be forced to live in high-rise apartments, where there will be no
space for their livestock and their crops can not grow. The majority of
these people will lose their livelihood, their houses and their history.
In this photo: A local man works in his cafe in Hasankeyf. If the Ilisu Dam goes ahead within three years his home and his entire livelihood will be lost.