GENEVA—The Turkish government should investigate hundreds of alleged killings and other rights abuses in Turkey’s southeast, the U.N. human rights office said on Friday, releasing a report on an upsurge in violence there over 18 months.
Based on “remote monitoring,” the report says that around 2,000 people, including 1,200 local residents and 800 security forces, were reportedly killed during the security sweep between July 2015 and December 2016.
Turkey’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
The crackdown comes as Turkey has faced many destabilizing factors in recent years, including deadly extremist attacks, a failed coup and an influx of refugees from Syria. Meanwhile, Kurdish fighters—some allegedly linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK rebel group—have been making inroads in a fight against the ISIS terrorist group in Syria.
The 25-page report, which draws on confidential accounts, satellite imagery and other sources, cites the destruction of nearly 1,800 buildings and the reported displacement of at least 355,000 people during the security sweep.
It seeks investigations so that “perpetrators of unlawful killings are brought to justice,” an end to “unannounced, open-ended, 24-hour curfews,” and “reparations for victims and family members” whose rights have been abused.
U.N. human rights investigators have failed to gain access to the largely ethnic Kurdish areas of the southeast despite nearly a year of attempts to do so. Rights office spokesman Rupert Colville said the Ankara government “hasn’t really given reasons” why access hasn’t been granted.
Colville said the investigation could be domestic, but it would need to be “seen as independent and impartial.”
