Medine Mamedoğlu

 

MARDİN- Ase Alokman was forcibly displaced from Belav (Beşevler) village of Mardin’s Savur district when the soldiers burned the village in 1990s. Ase returned to her villages after years and she rebuilt her home. “After 20 years, my memories, my garden and my mountains are enlivening in front of me. If they try to take my village from me again, I will go in the fire despite my age,” said Ase, who is 80 years old now.

 

80-year-old Ase Alokman was forcibly displaced from Belav (Beşevler) village of Mardin’s Savur district when the soldiers burned the village in 1990s. Ase was forced to leave her home in the Belav (Beşevler) village in 1994. After 20 years, Ase returned to her burned village and rebuilt her home. Ase stated that she will never leave her village again no matter what happens.

 

‘We were forced to leave the village with treats and tortures’

 

Ase told what they faced in those days and she stated that a feeling of great anger filled her when she was forced to leave her village, where she spent her childhood, her youth and all of her life. Ase remembered what happened 23 years ago and she said the soldiers had told them to leave the village in 10 days and they had burned the village when the villages had told them they wouldn’t leave the village.

 

Ase said the villagers had tried to put out the fire on the first day but the village had been blockaded on the second day. “They came and entered the houses and broke all windows. They destroyed everything they found. We understood we couldn’t do anything and we had to leave the village on the 10th day.”

 

’20 years away from the village’

 

Ase said they had watched how their village was burned in five minutes and everyone witnessed the burning of the village in tears.

 

Ase’s husband could only live two more years after their village had been burned. Ase said, “My husband missed our village and home. We had gardens and orchards and we had to leave all. He never forgot what had happened. His last will was to bury him in the village. And we buried him in the village. Then police surrounded us in five minutes. We had to leave the village immediately after burying my husband. We lived 20 years away from our village. We lived in Diyarbakır and Batman.”

 

‘We rebuilt our burned home’

 

After 20 years living away from the village, Ase told her children that she wanted to return the village. Ase said, “We returned to the village in 2014 and we rebuilt our burned home. Other people took our gardens and orchards and we retook them. Before I looked out on to streets in the city but now I am looking out on the gardens and mountains. I am happy to be here after years. I want to die here… If they try to take my village from me again, I will go in the fire despite my age. I will not leave my village to them that time.”