The 54-page report titled “Social Impacts and Migration” said that 100,000 people will have to migrate due to the building of the Ilisu Dam and the flooding of the 12-thousand-years-old site and Dicle river bank. Report about the consequences of the flooding of Hasankeyf by the Ilisu Dam, was prepared by the Hasankeyf Coordination, ahead of a Global Day of Action, on 14 September.
The Hasankeyf Coordination reiterated its call for a Global Day of Action on 14 September saying that “it is not too late to save Hasankeyf”.
The report underlined that when the Ilisu Dam is completely filled, the 136-kilometer river bed of the Tigris River will be included in the reservoir, and the 400-kilometer river bed along with the tributaries of the Tigris will be swallowed by the dam waters.
The report states that rights violations and the violence spiral of the project were accelerated in the last period nearing the flooding of the reservoir, and added that the situation resembled that of the forcibly evacuation of villages by soldiers during the 1990s.
Indeed the report also mentioned the problems in the expropriation of the people’s properties that will be inundated by the Ilisu Dam. The expropriation costs were insufficient and the citizens were faced with the option of migrating to new settlements or other settlements in the region.
Most of those who migrated to the new settlements are now facing unemployment, the report said.
“The consortium or DSI has not contacted the municipalities to solve the problems of people who migrated or will migrate to cities such as Batman and Diyarbaki. No plan was prepared in agreement with the municipalities to deal with such an influx of people.”
On the other hand, another issue that was emphasized in the report was that although the cost of the dam was announced as 1,2 billion euros by the State Hydraulic Works, the government has so far refrained from making a statement on this issue. The report emphasized that international financial institutions provided loans for Ilisu, but many European companies took a step back thanks to the struggle carried out.
