Air raid on Koçağılı and Kuşkonar
The air strike on Koçağılı and Kuşkonar was an attack by two fighter planes and a combat helicopter of the Turkish Air Force on their own citizens in the two Kurdish villages Koçağılı (Kurd. Besüke) and Kuşkonar (Kurd. Gever) about 20 km west of Şırnak . The villages were nine kilometers apart as the crow flies.
The air strikes occurred on March 26, 1994 at around 10.30 a.m. 13 people were killed in Koçağılı and 25 people died in Kuşkonar. A total of 13 people were injured. The majority of those killed were children, including seven infants, and older women. The high proportion of children and older women was due to the fact that the men were working in the fields at this time. The survivors from Kuşkonar buried the victims in a mass grave near the ruins, the survivors from Koçağılı brought their dead to Kumçatı to be buried there. Both villages were abandoned and are still abandoned today.
The Turkey made responsible for the massacre PKK responsible. In response to a parliamentary question from Selim Sadak , Interior Minister Nahit Menteşe said in August of the same year that there had been an air operation against around 1,000 PKK fighters north of Koçağılı. About 150 fighters were killed. On the same day, PKK fighters attacked the villages with 82 mm grenade launchers, rocket launchers and long weapons . Judicial investigations into the incident were delayed and shifted between different prosecutors for years.
In 2006 relatives and victims filed a complaint against Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). According to her, the villages were attacked because the residents refused to work as village guards . During the proceedings in 2012 it turned out that the flight data of the fighter planes were indeed available, contrary to all information provided by the security forces. In November 2013, the ECtHR sentenced Turkey to pay compensation of 2,300,000 euros because the attack violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights and also made no effort to investigate the incident.