The role of anti-Kurdish language violence in the devastation of the 2023 earthquake

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Photo by Burhan Yalçın

This blog is part of Respond’s Kurdish storytelling project. Visit the main project page here.

by Raman Salah

One effect of linguicide – the calculated destruction of a language – is that during times of disaster and emergency, government response and relief measures like critical information and outreach are not accessible in a language that many of the people most affected by the crisis can understand.

This reality was laid bare in February 2023, when a magnitude-7.8 earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 50 thousand people and leaving hundreds of thousands of others homeless, sheltering in tents and other temporary structures. Another magnitude-7.5 quake struck later that day.

Research and human rights organizations reported that the devastation of the quakes was not felt equally, however. Both quakes originated in close proximity to Kurdish cities and the provinces worst affected by the earthquake were among those where ethnic minorities, including Kurdish Alevi communities, disproportionately live. (Alevis are a religious group in Anatolia that has been historically discriminated against.) Additionally, Minority Rights Group, Amnesty International, the Washington Kurdish Institute, and others documented that during relief efforts, both the Turkish and Syrian governments withheld aid from and discriminated against decimated Kurdish areas.

“It seems that the will to protect and provide for those affected has not been shared evenly, whether manifested as discrimination at the point of accessing relief or merely as a lack of any relief efforts at all.” Minority Rights Group

However, until now, the exact role anti-Kurdish language violence played in the devastation of the earthquake has not been investigated.

Kurdish people say that in countries with large Kurdish populations, state authorities provide support and public safety measures almost exclusively in Turkish, Persian, or Arabic, despite the fact that many people, especially elders, do not comprehend those languages. 

In 2017, a powerful earthquake struck Kermanshah, (Kirmaşan, Rojhelat, Iranian-occupied Kurdistan), a majority Kurdish-speaking area. Killing at least 620 people and injuring more than 9,000 in numerous districts of the province. In total, 427,266 people were affected in eight cities and 1,950 rural areas of Kermanshah province. More than 37,00 residential units in rural areas and in the cities have been seriously damaged between 50 and 100 percent, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.

Gordyaen Jermayi, a Kurmanji speaker from the city of Urmia, described how the Iranian state only provided services in Persian.

“I know stories of people who have suffered, who have been injured, but because they couldn’t speak Persian or couldn’t understand Persian, they couldn’t get the services that they needed.”

Mariwan, US-based Hewramî speaker with roots in the city of Sine (Rojhelat, Iranian-occupied Kurdistan), emphasized that people are forced to rely on each other at the local level to understand what’s going on during disasters and crises, as “messaging from the government is always communicated in Farsi [the standard Persian of Iran].”

These inequities were made apparent once again in the February 2023 earthquake. According to Amnesty International, in Syria, the government restricted aid “from entering areas with populations perceived to be opposed to the government or areas outside its control,” especially its Kurdish regions, much of which is already impoverished and dependent on aid. Additionally, “The Syrian government has prevented aid from reaching predominantly Kurdish neighbourhoods in areas under the control of the Kurdish civilian council in the city of Aleppo, which were severely impacted by the earthquake.” 

Respond received anecdotal reports over this period that communication about the disaster and relief in both Syria and Turkey was not published in Kurdish.

“For example, during the earthquake of Turkey and Syria, we were following that there were many people who did not get assistance in their respective dialects, and most of this area is Kurdish populated,” said Dilan*, a language justice advocate and Sorani speaker from Bashur now living abroad.

“We were hearing some stories that there were a lot of elderly people crying out for help in their dialects – Kurmanji – but no one could understand or communicate with them even if there were so many NGOs to get them rescued. There was still a huge barrier between them.”

Hêvî*, a Kurmanji speaker from Bakur, explained that the Turkish government provided no Kurdish language support to Turkish and international NGOs that work with Kurdish communities. According to him, “The Turkish authorities do not provide them [international organizations] with a Kurdish translator or interpreter! They don’t announce job opportunities for Kurdish speakers.”

“Survivors of humanitarian disasters have a right to timely, relevant, accessible and accurate information in a language they understand, without discrimination. Provision of such information can prevent further loss of life. … At minimum, survivors should have access to timely information regarding those who are dead or presumed to be dead; any available information about missing relatives or friends; and specific details regarding the provision of food, water, shelter, medical, reproductive health, and other essential services.” Amnesty International

Rojda Arslan, a Germany-based Zazakî speaker, described the fear felt by Kurdish speakers in Turkey, especially elders, in the face of these disasters and the government’s response. They are afraid – and were proven right in February 2023 – that because they do not speak Turkish, they will be abandoned in times of emergency and disaster.

“There were many women afraid to speak in Kurdish to save their life,” Rojda said. “They were thinking they might not get rescued if they spoke Kurdish.”

The lack of Kurdish-language information following the February earthquake was not an outlier or a mishap – but to many interviewed by Respond, a calculated omission.

“In times of crisis and disasters, [translation into Kurdish] is not only important – it’s the only way to communicate to them … to get accurate information to them because they don’t speak any other language,” said Berivan*, a Sorani speaker from Bashur.

“Not providing information in Kurdish in a crisis is somehow an indirect crime because no one would do that without any purpose. … You have to provide accurate information in their own language in order to rescue them.”

Instead of states fulfilling their obligations to provide information in Kurdish, so that large proportions of their populations could access it, individual Kurdish speakers instead were forced to fill in. 

Dilan said, “I can translate, I can assist people when they are in a natural disaster, or my friends and colleagues, we can do small things. But the responsibility is not in our small hands.”

This language injustice undoubtedly contributed to the staggering death toll among Kurdish communities of the earthquake. While no death toll for Kurdish victims specifically exists, the confirmed total death toll stands at over 59,000.

*Several names have been changed to protect the privacy and safety of our project participants and their loved ones. Because of the fact that several Kurdish names have been outlawed across Kurdistan by occupying regimes, we note here that we have chosen to use names that are banned.