By Mark Lowen, 1 June 2015
For years it has been their ritual - women who lost children and husbands in 30 years of armed conflict between the Kurds and the Turkish state.I meet them in Diyarbakir - the final stop of our election trip across Turkey.Age and exhaustion are etched on their faces. One wears a necklace with a picture of her missing children. Another has a bracelet bearing the Kurdish flag."Turkey doesn't think we Kurds are humans", says Sakine Arat, 80, who lost four sons and one daughter in the fighting. "We've tried all the political parties but none sided with us. Now we've found one - the HDP - that treats us as equals. So we will vote for it."The People's Democratic Party (HDP) is the one to watch in Turkey's election on Sunday.Its roots and support base are Kurdish but it has broadened out, becoming a powerful voice of the Turkish left.
