Carolyn Drake has chronicled areas threatened by Turkey’s Southeast Anatolia Project. Among them is the town of Hasankeyf which is situated along the Tigris River in Turkey sixty-five kilometres upstream from the Syria and Iraq borders. The town, along with more than fifty villages scattered along the banks of the Tigris, will eventually submerge under the floodwaters of the Ilisu Dam, when it is completed in 2013.

The Ilisu Dam, will displace thousands of people and cover most of the archaeology that’s built into the landscape. The twenty-two dams that constitute the project will help modernize Turkey’s poorest region.

The aim of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (Turkish: Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, GAP) is regional development based on irrigated agriculture. Most of the thousands of villagers adversely affected by these projects do not appear to have been consulted at all about the dams and many of whom want to return to reservoir areas, having already been displaced by the recent conflict in the region. The overwhelming response in particular from women and their organisations is one of opposition to the negative impact on them and those in their care; yet women have been the least consulted sector.