TURKISH forces have desecrated Kurdish graves and destroyed the Sheikh Ibrahim mausoleum in Hasankeyf, an ancient city in the Batman province of Turkey’s largely Kurdish south-east.

Armoured vehicles moved into a graveyard in the village of Gunseli on Monday and smashed up tombstones previously badly damaged by government troops. In a deliberately provocative act, soldiers hung the Turkish flag from trees in the graveyard where hundreds of Kurdish bodies are buried.

Their destruction of the Sheikh Ibrahim mausoleum deprived the region of one of its holiest sites. It was the latest in a series of sickening attacks on Kurdish and Alevi graves and holy sites over the past few months as the Turkish state escalates hostilities.