As the Turkish authorities take steps to end the four-decade-long conflict with the Kurdish militant group PKK, people who fled their villages are revisiting their abandoned homes – but rebuilding normal life there will be a major challenge.
“It was the biggest breaking point in my life,” said Aydin Kurdis, remembering the day he and his family left their village 32 years ago.
In the early 1990s, the village of Golord, known officially as Bostancik, was home to around 200 families. Its stone houses sat among hills covered with walnut and fruit trees. Villagers made a living raising livestock, while the orchards provided much of what families needed.
“Before we left the village, I didn’t know what pain was. I didn’t know what poverty was,” Kurdis said, sitting in front of the house where he was born and eating cucumbers just pulled from the garden down the slope on an August afternoon. “Life was hard on us after we moved to the city.”
Kurdis, 52, lives in Yuksekova, the largest district in Turkey’s southeastern Hakkari province, near the Iranian border. Golord is only a 45-minute drive away, but the final 10 kilometres are unpaved, with potholes dotting the dusty mountain road.
Source: balkaninsight.com
