Parrots of War: Turkey Edition

This story, partly reprinted here, written by Amberin Zaman, was published by the Middle East news website, Almonitor: The Pulse of the Middle East, March 30, 2016.

An African Grey Parrot, Not Heval

Animals among victims of southeast Turkey clashes

Boom! Boom! Boom! The crash of artillery fire rarely features in the vocabulary of a parrot, but that is the only sound Heval, a once-loquacious African gray parrot, emits these days. Heval, whose name means “comrade” in Kurdish, was marooned in the heart of Diyarbakir's historic Sur district during three months of bloody clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish youths fighting for the urban guerrilla arm of the ethno-nationalist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

“Heval was stuck in Sur for 10 days with no food or water. I was unable to rescue him because of the uninterrupted curfew,” the parrot’s owner, Aladdin Kilic, told Al-Monitor in an interview at his “breakfast salon” in Diyarbakir’s Yenisehir district. “By the time I got to him, he had almost perished from hunger and dehydration. He was picking at his own feathers in a state of extreme stress.” Kilic feeds Heval a pistachio pinched between his own lips before adding, “My boy is on antidepressants now.”

Heval seems to be on the mend. But other creatures were not so lucky. The conflict has reduced parts of Sur and other neighborhoods in the mainly Kurdish southeast to blackened, bullet-riddled ruins.

“It's impossible to keep an accurate count, but hundreds of cats, dogs and numerous species of birds have either died or been wounded since round-the-clock curfews were imposed [over Sur] in early December,” said Sevgi Ekmekciler, deputy director of Haytap, one of Turkey’s top animal rights groups. Ekmekciler told Al-Monitor that many of the animals were killed in the crossfire between security forces and the armed youths who barricaded themselves in the narrow alleyways snaking through the district. Other pets simply starved to death because owners who fled the violence were not permitted to re-enter Sur. Kilic said pigeon fanciers, who kept the age-old tradition alive in Sur, were among the worst hit, losing scores of their most prized birds. Ekmekciler and fellow animal lovers continue to scour the streets of Sur daily for wounded animals trapped under the debris. At the peak of the violence, undeterred by the bullets whizzing above them, her team would bully and plead their way through police barriers to feed and rescue the animals, including a donkey and a bowl full of goldfish.

Parrots of War

In the midst of a horrendous civil war, amid the black market for fuel, cigarettes, guns, and bombs, there seems to be a thriving black market for parrots. Yes, parrots! In spite of civil war, strife, and turmoil, people seem to be inexorably drawn to parrots.

This story, Turkish army seizes parrots, budgies on Syria border, in its entirety, was published by Reuters, February 5, 2016:

ISTANBUL, Feb 5 (Reuters) - The Turkish army has confiscated 700 parrots and 294 budgerigars on the border with Syria, it said on Friday, as its tighter security measures ensnare what was once a thriving trade in domesticated birds.

NATO member Turkey has stepped up security along its 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria as it tries to prevent foreign fighters joining Islamic State militants and defend itself against spillover from the country's civil war. But the measures, including more frequent border patrols and reinforced fencing, have also shut off what was long a thriving illicit trade in goods including fuel, cigarettes, sugar and, it seems, birds.

"They were generally bringing Sultan, Love and Paradise parrots. Here in Turkey a Paradise parrot goes for 1,000 lira, but they were bringing them over for 500," said Mehmet Turan, a bird breeder in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli. "It's the same for lovebirds. We were selling them at 25 lira retail, but they came from Syria at 12.5 to 15," he told Reuters by telephone.

Some basic goods like sugar sold for around half the price in Syria, where it was produced, than in Turkey before the war. Fuel is heavily taxed in Turkey, meaning the black market for illegal diesel, however crudely refined, also thrived.

Turkey has won international praise for its humanitarian response to Syria's war, maintaining an open door policy to those fleeing the violence and taking in more than 2.5 million refugees over almost five years. But it is under pressure from Europe to stem the flow of migrants and from NATO allies to do more to secure the border. While continuing to allow in refugees at border crossings, the Turkish army has been detaining those trying to cross illegally on an almost daily basis.

It said it detained almost 800 people on Thursday, and seized 2,660 packets of cigarettes, three cattle and a mobile phone along with the birds.