Milas (Türkiye) (AFP) – Nejla Isik walks in what remains of the razed Akbelen forest, near her village in southwest Turkey. She surveys a coal mine that devours the hill: “we call it the hellhole.”

Published on: 06/11/2026 - 09:54

Turkey, which is hosting COP31 on Monday in Antalya (south), wants to display its best record, which is supposed to give pride of place to renewable energies. Those who highlight another reality are not welcome.

For almost ten years, Nejla Isik, 48, and her daughter Esra, 26, have been mobilizing against the mining projects which are devastating the province of Mugla one by one.

Mayor of Ikizkoy, a village with 70 households, Mrs. Isik is fighting head-on the YK Enerji company which wants to expand the mine to increase the production capacity of its two thermal power plants.

Several lawsuits are underway against the company, owner of the mine and the power plant, which adjoins their village. But also against the presidency, after the publication of a decree ordering the emergency expropriation of 679 plots, signed by the head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan last January.

"My grandmother's village was wiped off the map because of the mine. My father's village was destroyed. We are a family who, for three, four generations, have already been uprooted and our land pillaged," denounces Esra, dressed in salvar, these traditional baggy pants from the region.

"Obstruction"

On March 31, she was taken into police custody and charged with “obstructing a public official.” She had protested against an official delegation which was carrying out an expertise prior to the expropriation of six villages.

“I spent 42 days in detention. My arrest gave another dimension to our fight in Türkiye, but also in the world,” she considers today.

The two women are not the only ones fighting. Residents of threatened villages meet regularly to discuss next actions, like Aytac Yakar, a 56-year-old housewife.

She had already been forced to leave her native village, Isikdere, which was swallowed up by a mine in 2018. She had settled in another town... which risks the same fate.

“Do I look like a migratory bird?” she gets carried away. "Let them not play with my house, my land, my homeland. If necessary, I will douse myself with gasoline and I will immolate myself in my house. But I will not leave it."

In Antalya (south), heads of state, experts and scientists will meet for two weeks to debate global warming and possible measures to slow it down.

But mother and daughter do not have the planet as their playground.

Thu. They will not go to COP31 and expect nothing from it. “I cannot leave my village. The Council of State rejected our appeal against the expropriations. We do not know what the company will do now,” explains Nejla Isik. "I will not go to this room where we already know that they will not listen to us while my village is burning here."

“Our graves, our olive trees”

A law introduced in 2025 had already considerably accelerated administrative deadlines for mining projects and opened protected areas, such as olive groves, to exploitation.

“Our houses, our graves, our olive trees, our land, all of this is threatened with being taken from our hands,” fears Nejla Isik, pointing to the area concerned on a map.

Others are delighted with the activities of YK Enerji, which says it supplies energy to more than 2 million homes per day. “The thermal power plant creates jobs for 70% of my village,” explains a plant employee who wishes to remain anonymous.

Questioned by AFP, the company YK Enerji for its part brandishes Turkey's energy security.

“For electricity production to continue, we need to access new deposits. As the amount of coal extracted from current sites decreases, these preparations are important,” explained Ahmet Eyidogan, general director of the YKE company, to AFP, affirming that the land will be redeveloped by replanting suitable species.

He assures that "village centers, as well as mosques, schools or cemeteries" will be spared and that "alternative solutions" will be offered to owners for outlying plots.

The group is one of the official supporters of COP31, defending Turkey's "carbon neutrality objective".

He considers “investments in renewable energies to be essential”. But “this transition must be carried out in a planned and progressive manner,” insisted the official.

© 2026 AFP

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