All information for this blog entry taken from judgement made by the European Court of Human Rights on March 24, 2014.

This incident occurred on March 26, 1994. On this day, military planes and a helicopter circled two villages and then started to bomb them. The two villages were  Kocagili and Kuskonar. As a result, 13 people in Kocagili village and 25 people in Kuskonar village lost their lives. Most of those who were killed were children, women or elderly. Thirty four of the dead included seven babies and a number of older children. In addition, a total of 13 people were injured.

When the bombing was widely reported in the national and international media and was condemned by human rights organisations, members of the military exerted pressure on the villagers and warned them not to make official complaints to the judicial authorities. Journalists were prevented from entering the hospitals where the injured were being treated, and from speaking to the villagers.

The Government of Turkey submitted that the villages had been attacked by the PKK.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled:

(i) that there has been a failure by the Government of Turkey to comply with Article 38 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”).  In other words, Turkey did not allow the Court of Human Rights to effectively conduct an investigation.

(ii) that there has been a violation by the Government of Turkey of Article 2 of the Convention in its procedural aspect on account of the failure to carry out an effective investigation into the bombing of the two villages.

(iii) that there has been a violation by the Government of Turkey of Article 3 of the Convention on account of the circumstances surrounding the bombing of the applicants’ villages and the lack of any assistance provided to the applicants by the national authorities.

Turkey is a member of NATO.