Lovesick men in Turkish village protest against marriage rejections

Dozens of lonely young men have protested in a small Turkish village after nine years of rejection from local women have finally become too much to handle.

Narrated

2 min read

The New Arab

08 Apr, 2016

The protesters called on Turkish President Erdogan to intervene [Getty]

Love can be hard to find, however, it seems it's harder to come across your soul mate if you're a single man in the remote village of Uzumlu in southern Turkey.

This week, a group of lovesick villagers took to the streets to protest against their village's women who have refused all marriage proposals over the last nine years, local media has reported.

Women in Uzumlu have said they do not want to be trapped in the small village - population 233 - prompting the men to vent their frustrations by marching with banners urging the ladies to accept village life.

"We live in such a beautiful land and we don't want to leave, our young people, however, are going one by one because they cannot find women to marry. They are willing to live in cities on minimum wage," said one villager.

"Are we asking for too much?" asked the crowd of protesters.

The men also called on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to relieve them of their misery in the village, which has seen the population fall from 400 to 233 in recent years.

According to the mayor of the village, Mustafa Bashbilan, there are 25 single men, aged between 25 and 45, seeking to get hitched in the village.

The women have chosen to leave the village and move to cities like Istanbul, Ankara and Antalya, while the men remain in Uzumlu to tend to their farmland, which has been in their families' possession for centuries.

In other parts of Turkey, tying the knot seems to be less of a problem.

Turkey is currently home to nearly three million Syrian refugees, who have fled the ongoing bloody war. The number of marriages between Turks and Syrians rose to 3,600 last year.