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A Kurdish politician was reported killed today after being struck by a tear gas cartridge fired by military police to disperse protesters near Turkey’s border with Iraq/south Kurdistan, according to reports by AFP, AP and Now Lebanon.
The protesters were demonstrating against Turkey’s recent air strikes. Yildirim Ayhan, a provincial assembly member of the southeastern province of Van, reportedly died after the tear gas cartridge hit him in the chest, as the military police attempted to disperse protesters in the town of Cukurca, witnesses and security sources said.
“The superiors of the soldiers opposite to us suddenly ordered them to intervene. They started to fire tear gas. One of the cartridges hit Ayhan and we saw him slumping,” a witness told AFP.
“He was bleeding from his chest,” another witness said.
Thousands of people from 16 different provinces started to march on Saturday towards the border to demonstrate against the army’s bombing raids – purportedly on bases of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – which last week wiped out seven members of a Kurdish family.
