MARDİN - Dicle Electricity Distribution Inc. (DEDAŞ) teams members, who cut off electricity in Mardin and victimized the people of the region, are visiting the villages and collecting signatures so that the villagers pay the debt and they will take money from well water. The citizens say they do this because they want to evacuate the villages.

 

The electricity in 280 villages of Mardin’s Kızıltepe, Derik, Nusaybin and Artuklu districts have been cut off by Dicle Electricity Distribution Inc. (DEDAŞ) due to “illegal electricity usage and unpaid bills”. The workers of the DEDAŞ, which cuts the electricity for 11 days and seizes water wells in the villages, are now visiting the villages one by one and asking for signatures to take money from the well water. The electricity of the some villages are still cut off in the city and the farmers feel uneasy about the situation.

 

A few days ago, a team went to Başak village of Mardin’s Kızıltepe district to cut off the electricity in the village, but they had to set back when the villagers resisted. Then, soldiers came to the village and attacked the villagers by using tear gas; six villagers were taken to the hospital due to the tear gas.

 

Zerga Tezduman, who was wounded in the neck by a tear-gas canister, said she didn’t remember what happened after being wounded. Stating that their suppliers are rotting due to the power cut, Zerga said, “They came to cut off electricity of all houses but they didn’t cut off the electricity of the houses of mukhtar (Head of the village) and their relatives. We have Syrian neighbors and they also suffered from the power cut. The food is rotting because we cannot use refrigerators anymore. We cannot cook bread due to the power cut. We set fire in the garden and cook like that.”

 

‘We just claim our rights’

 

Zerga taked about the day she got wounded as follows; “They took my nephew and beat him. My daughter's feet became bruised. My aunt was injured. My sister-in-law fell faint. I cannot move my neck easily due to the wound. I filed a complaint against them but I don’t know if they are punished. I didn’t do anything illegal there, we just claimed our rights.”

 

‘They want to destroy agriculture in the villages’

 

Indicating that the state wants to reduce the population in the villages, Zerga said, “We buy fertilizer, we give money to the workers, the electricity costs are too much and we cannot pay them. There are a lot of expenses. They want to displace us from our villages to cities. These lands are our only means of living. How can we make our living if we move to cities? They think we would flee with our children but we will not go to anywhere until we die.”