Turkish soldiers met gangs on Kobanê border last night’

Turkish soldiers met gangs on Kobanê border last night’

ANF - URFA

It is claimed that Turkish soldiers held a meeting with ISIS gangs in the border area last night. Residents of the village of Boydê who witnessed the meeting said that the gangs had arrived in vehicles and that the troops had handed things over to them.

It is alleged that another example of collaboration between Turkish troops and gangs took place last night on the Kobanê border in the village of Boydê. Residents of the village say that suspicious persons got out of a white minibus with darkened windows that is frequently seen in the area and spoke to Turkish soldiers. One of the witnesses, Fuat Tilgen, said that after they heard some shots they went outside and said that two of a group of people from Kobanê trying to bring their animals over the border to Turkey were arrested and beaten for hours by troops from the Karaca military post.

Tilgen added that after midnight a white minibus with darkened windows had driven into the minefield where the people from Kobanê where being held, saying: "About 15 people got out of the vehicle and began to attack the people there. A few shots were fired. Then they went to the pistachio plantation. Then another vehicle arrived and shouting began. It went on for half an hour.”

Tilgen said the minibus had driven the families from Kobanê to the eastern side of the border, after which another minibus had arrived. They spoke to soldiers there. We couldn’t make out what was being said. Then another vehicle arrived and some heavy objects began to be transferred from the vehicle. It was something like large drums. Then the minibus left.”

Child tortured

Tilgen said that the Turkish soldiers had continued to torture a child from Kobanê after the vehicles had left. Tilgen said: "We could hear the sound of the stick being used to beat him. Every time they hit him they made him say 'one Turkey, two Turkey, three Turkey'. Then the soldiers released him and by 5 in the morning it was all over.”

I pretended to be dead

Mahmud İbrahim, a victim of beating, said: "As we tried to cross over into Turkey the soldiers attacked us with truncheons and with their rifle barrels. Then they threw us amongst the barbed wire. They tried to strangle me and I pretended to be dead. They left me there. Later I crawled through the wire to Boydê village."

Two people dragged along the ground by armoured vehicles

Şergo Şexo, also from Kobanê, said he had wanted to cross the border in order to get bread, when he saw Turkish troops capture a couple, adding: "the soldiers tied the man and woman to an armoured vehicle and dragged them through the minefield.”

Transfer of ammunition

Şexo said that a vehicle belonging to the gangs had crossed the railway line from the direction of Tel Shear and threatened the families from Kobanê, telling them to take their vehicles and leave the area. "After the families had gone, a vehicle came from the military post and spoke to those who had come in the gang vehicle. Someone who spoke Turkish spoke to the soldiers for the ISIS members. Then something like a trunk was unloaded from vehicles that came from the Turkish side and put in the ISIS members’ vehicle.”