TURKEY’S authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was accused on Saturday of personally ordering an attack which wiped out 34 Kurdish villagers eight years ago.

The Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organisation of parties including the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), pledged on the anniversary of the attack to build “a free Kurdistan and a democratic Middle East where no people are killed at the borders.”

On December 28 2011, Turkish warplanes bombed a group of villagers for 45 minutes as they made their way across a mountain path from the Iraqi border after they had travelled to collect supplies to sell at market.

The bodies were so badly mutilated that their families had difficulty separating them from the mules that were killed alongside them. No rescue operation took place and nobody has been held to account.

A KCK statement said that Kurds have been murdered for centuries, simply for wanting to live freely in their countries with their own identity, language and culture.

“The order for the Roboski massacre was given personally by Tayyip Erdogan. He was asked what to do, as there could be a PKK member among the 40 to 50 people. Erdogan gave the order to kill them all,” KCK claimed.

“Erdogan would have given the order even if there had been a thousand children and young people carrying goods on the mules there.

“This is the very genocidal war that has been waged against the Kurds. For these murderous forces, even a thousand or a million Kurds are worthless, let alone one Kurd.”

KCK vowed to continue the struggle for a democratic Turkey and called for the perpetrators of the massacre to be brought to justice.