Turkey's military operations in the mostly Kurdish southeast amount to "collective punishment," Amnesty International warned on Thursday, as the army said it killed 33 members of the armed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) the previous day.
The army is also imposing strict curfews on civilian areas and blocking access to medical care and water, the London-based human rights group said, warning of the "extreme hardships they [residents] are currently facing as a result of harsh and arbitrary measures."
A two-year ceasefire between the armed PKK and the state broke down in July, leading to a fresh outbreak of violence in the south-east, especially in Diyarbakir and Sirnak provinces.
Last month, the government launched an intense operation in those two provinces aimed at rooting out the PKK and its allied offshoots, using police and the army.
The Turkish army's announcement of new PKK deaths raises to 641 the number of alleged militants who died over the past five weeks amid an intensive military operation.
Kurdish officials reported the deaths of two additional civilians. More than 100 civilians, including 18 children, have died in Sirnak and Diyarbakir provinces since the middle of December, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) says.
The pro-Kurdish Firat news agency said one of those killed on Wednesday was a member of the local council in Cizre municipality in Sirnak. He was reportedly trying to clear injured people from a street when he was hit by a bullet.
The army says security forces have since killed 640 militants in the areas. Dozens of members of the security forces also died.
Amnesty said the government forces were using heavy weaponry and snipers, while preventing many observers from reaching affected areas.
"In some areas, crippling curfews that don't allow people to leave their houses at all have been in place for more than a month, effectively laying siege to entire neighbourhoods," said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty's researcher.
The government views the PKK as a terrorist organization and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his objective is to "clean" the areas of the militants.
By Shabtai Gold
