The Balance Of The War In Kurdistan: More Than 35,000 Dead Since 1984

KURD-A Special Report, 15 January 1995

Over the last few weeks, KURD-A carried out research to discover the balance of the war in Kurdistan. In addition to information from their own correspondents, KURD-A also utilized data from the daily newspaper Ozgur Ulke, reports from the Turkish human rights association IHD, as well as statistics compiled by the Kurdish liberation front ERNK.

Since 1984, the beginning of the armed struggle of the PKK, the war-like confrontation between the Turkish government and the army on the one side and the ARGK, the Kurdish guerrilla army of the PKK, on the other has reached an unprecedented level of intensity, one which is not reflected in German-language media reports. According to KURD-A's research, between 35,000 and 37,000 people have died since 1984.

A total of 11,000 armed confrontations have taken place since 1984. In these battles, approximately 26,000 Turkish soldiers and other members of the security forces were killed, as were approximately 3,500 ARGK guerrillas. Between 5,000 and 7,000 civilians in Kurdistan have also died. The actual number of civilians killed is difficult to calculate, since more than 2 million people have become refugees and more than 2,500 villages have been destroyed during the last two years alone.

It is during these last two years that the fatality statistics most accurately illustrate the increasingly dramatic war situation in Kurdistan. Whereas last week the governor of the provinces under emergency rule, in contrast to government figures from Ankara, spoke of more than 9,000 dead in 1994 alone, KURD-A has received information which indicates that 11,000 Turkish soldiers and members of the security forces and 1,300 guerrillas were killed during that time period.