Yeşilova incident

Yeşilova incident
Yeşilova Yeşilova (Turkey)
Date April 1991 Location Yeşilova, Turkey Result Royal Marines withdraw with supplies
Belligerents
Royal Marines	Turkish Armed Forces
Strength
~30
Casualties and losses
No casualties

The Yeşilova incident refers to an alleged armed stand off that took place in April 1991 between British Royal Marines and the Turkish Armed Forces at a refugee camp in Yeşilova (also seen spelled Yasilova), a small town in Turkey near the borders of Iraq and Iran.

In March 1991, with the end of hostilities between Coalition forces and the Iraqi military, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sought to quash the rising Shiite and Kurdish insurgents who were rebelling against his regime. Saddam managed to put down the rebellions with little effort but continued to persecute the Kurds in northern Iraq. Thousands of Kurdish and Assyrian civilians were displaced, most of them finding shelter in refugee camps in Turkey. Though coalition forces ultimately chose not to intervene against the crackdown, they did launch a massive humanitarian relief effort to at least help alleviate the plight of the refugees.

According to British journalist Robert Fisk, the only reporter present, in April 1991, a British Marines unit consisting of about thirty men was tasked with distributing relief supplies to 3,000 Kurds and Assyrians in Yeşilova under the watch of the Turkish military, but they found themselves in direct confrontation with the Turks. The Turkish soldiers, instead of cooperating with the British Marines in relief distribution, were charged with stealing blankets, bed linen, flour and food, including sixty boxes of water, intended for the refugees, forcing the Marines to intervene. The British Marines asked to transport the refugees out of the country, a request that was denied by the local Turkish commander. The Marines were thus forced to pile the supplies back into their helicopters to prevent further pillaging but also faced a possible firefight against the Turkish forces. On April 29, a detachment of diplomatic officials and CIA agents attached to the United States Embassy in Ankara arrived in Yeşilova to help defuse the situation. They found that various diseases, including cases of acute diarrhea and cholera, had broken out among the civilians in the camp and that the refugees had been deprived of medical services by the Turkish military.