FORMER People’s Democratic Party (HDP) MP Ferhat Encu demanded justice for the Roboski victims in an open letter from his Turkish jail cell today on the seventh anniversary of the massacre.

The opposition politician – who lost nine family members when Turkish jets killed 34 Kurdish villagers in Sirnak province in December 2011 – accused authorities of a cover-up “which has opened deep wounds in humanity’s conscience that won’t stop bleeding.”

Vigils and demonstrations were held across Turkey today, marking the anniversary of the attack on the unarmed group of cross-border traders who were making their way back from the Iraqi border with supplies of oil and tobacco when the F-16 warplanes struck.

They were demanding justice for the 34 killed – which included 19 children – accusing Turkish authorities of a cover-up.

Mr Encu was stripped of his parliamentary status and jailed for more than four years for spreading terrorist propaganda after accusing the Turkish air force of the killings in a 2016 parliamentary session.

During heated exchanges, parliamentarians called for Mr Encu to be shot and the speaker called for security to remove him from the floor and warned he would be jailed for a minimum of five years.

But the former spokesman for the Roboski victims’ families has remained defiant in his quest for justice and warned in today’s letter that “history will remember this injustice and hold it to account.”

Nobody has been held accountable for the killings, with a string of failed court cases in Turkey and a claim to the European Court of Human Rights rejected on technicalities.

Mr Encu vowed that Kurds would continue to fight for fraternity and peace against those who had created “rivers of blood on these lands.”

He warned: “We know the perpetrators of this massacre. We weren’t killed just because we were poor, we were killed because of our identity and our belonging, and unfortunately, this continues still.”

He said the fight for justice would go on with Kurdish lands having seen “great pains” caused by a handful of power seekers looking out for their own interests.

As the jailed opposition politician warned that investigations into many massacres and killings have been “abandoned in the dark depths of Ankara” he called on “all rights defenders and lawyers to show solidarity with Roboski to unearth the truth of Roboski through legal ways.”