If Incilay Erdogan is stressed, she doesn’t show it. In the morning, a trial which could put her behind bars for years will begin. But she spends the evening laughing with friends, drinking tea, and breaking into spontaneous dance. “When they told me the court case was here in Mardin, I couldn’t have been happier. What a beautiful place to face judgement.”

It’s not the first time Incilay, who lives in Istanbul, has visited the region. In February 2016 she was part of a group of fourteen health professionals from across Turkey who assembled a voluntary ambulance crew in Mardin. Their goal was to reach the Kurdish-majority town of Cizre, one hundred kilometers to the east.

At the time, Cizre was facing one of the harshest curfews in modern history, imposed by the Turkish army to root out militants of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). With hundreds of civilians trapped in the city without access to health care or basic supplies, the Trade Union of Employees in Public Health and Social Services (SES) and the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) put out a call for volunteer medics.