Facilities for gymnastics, track and swimming where the children can train for this project were established near the village after the massacre by Nuri Batır, a national athlete. The children will participate in a major performance to be staged in Mardin as part of the Aug. 30 Victory Day celebrations and another
one in the capital, followed by performances abroad in a number of countries.
Mehmet Fidan, director of the regional Youth and Sports Directorate, said: “We are giving all the support we can. Last week, the Bilge village children came in seventh out of 15 teams competing in the Southeastern Anatolia Project [GAP] sports events held in Batman. “This is a great success for us, as we only had one week to prepare for the tournament. The best way to help these kids forget about the incident is sports. When they are done training, they will perform in Mardin, Ankara and then abroad during performances for world peace,” he said.
Batır said he was looking to give the children a pastime through summer sports activities to help them forget about the pain they have been through. “My belief is that humanity will start rising up once it hits bottom. These children are the children who will bring peace to Turkey and to the world. Now we are working on an activity for the Aug. 30 Victory Day in Mardin. We will continue in Ankara. But what excites me most is that we will be performing for kids abroad as the ‘Peace Flowers' group.”
Abdurrahman Çelebi, the muhtar (village head) of Bilge and one of the survivors, said the complex has helped the children's mental state. “Our orphaned children are being trained at this sports complex every day. Bless our national athlete Nuri Batır. He is teaching these children, preparing them for tournaments. They have forgotten the pain they went through. The kids have started smiling again,” he said.
Three gunmen attacked the village in May, killing 44 people in what was called the bloodiest attack in the history of the republic, shocking the nation. A parliamentary commission conducting an investigation into the attack said in a report that a row over the distribution of income from illegal trade in oil was a possible driving force behind the attack.
