Turkey: Kurdish family seeks ecologically friendly life on the slopes of Mount Andok

With anti-environmental projects and urbanisation policies life becomes harder and more complicated for the Kurds living in eastern and southeastern Turkey.

Amid the hardening of conditions of life in the cities, Kurds are building themselves houses in the villages and prefer to live an ecologically friendly life surrounded by nature. Sebriya İlbey is one of those people who lives an alternative life model.

The İlbey family, in order to get away from urban life and stay in touch with nature, spend their summer months without electricity in a two-room house built on the slopes of Mount Andok in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakır (Amed), Jinha reports.

Since the village is far away from the schools, İlbey stays in the city for education for her chldren during the winter time. With the schools closing, mountain life begins for the İlbey family.

İlbey provides all their needs from nature during their summer stay near Mount Andok.

“We built this house fifteen years ago. Before that, we lived in tents for 3 years. We cannot live in the city during the summer. We come here when schools are closed. When school opens, we return to our home in the city,” she said.

She explains her life in nature: “We have a garden here, we plant in it. We have a two-room home. We get our electricity from solar panels we have built ourselves.”

İlbey underlines that she is able to provide all their needs from nature. “We gather anything that is eatable. And we make our own bread as well. Far from the city, we can live here with the food we produce ourselves,” she said.

There has been an increase in Kurdish people returning to their villages far from the cities in recent years, according to İlbey. “Before, people would migrate from the villages to the cities, now it is the other way,” she observes.

İlbey loves her life neighbouring Kurdish nomads ‘Kocers’ by the mountains and to be surrounded by nature. “The air of the mountains is so beautiful and clean. When I see these mountains, the water flowing here, I feel alive,” she said.