At least 19 people were killed and scores wounded in overnight clashes throughout Turkey amid ethnic Kurdish outrage about the government’s refusal to aid the besieged Syrian city of Kobani, according to local media reports.

Authorities imposed a curfew in six provinces – including areas along the Syrian border – and in the largely ethnic-Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey.

Protesters, mostly Kurds, a major minority group in Turkey, took to the streets in urban centers, including Istanbul and the capital, Ankara.

Clashes between police and protesters in several dozen cities resulted in scores of injuries and damage to public buildings, bank branches, political party headquarters and other structures, reported the state-run Anadolu agency. Police officers were among those injured, state media said. Police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the protesters.

The reported death toll of 19 by early Wednesday already surpasses the number killed during weeks of massive, anti-government protests last year, noted the website of Today’s Zaman newspaper.

Kurds are enraged that Turkish authorities have refused to provide military aid or allow supplies into Kobani, a largely Kurdish city just south of the border in Syria. Islamic State militants for weeks have been besieging the city, also known as Ayn al-Arab. Turkish tanks and troops are poised just across the border, but have not engaged the advancing militants. The Turks have also prevented Kurdish militia volunteers and supplies from reaching Kobani, Kurdish leaders say.

Many Kurds suspect Turkish government complicity with the Islamic State extremists, an allegation denied by Ankara.

“We are very angry,” said Kazim Kazil, a Kurdish activist reached via Skype in the southern Turkey town of Suruc. “Daesh fighters have crossed from Turkey into Kobani, in front of [Turkish] soldiers, and joined in the war against Kobani,” Kazil added, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Turkey has been hesitant to become directly involved in the U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State. Turkish officials worry that such an action could strengthen its adversaries, including the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Kurdish rebels inside Turkey.

In recent days, the American-led coalition has hit Islamic State positions near Kobani with airstrikes. But U.S. officials say their main goal is to defeat the Islamic State throughout Syria and Iraq.

“Certainly no one wants to see Kobani fall, but our primary objective here is preventing ISIL from gaining a safe haven,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington on Tuesday, using an alternative acronym for Islamic State

In Istanbul, the Turkish media reported, angry Kurds attacked a political headquarters and hurled Molotov cocktails in the Beyoglu neighborhood near Gezi Park, which saw vast antigovernment protests last year.

In the ethnic-Kurdish hub of Diyarbakir, the Hurriyet Daily News reported that eight people were killed in clashes between reported Islamic State sympathizers and supporters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is allied with the Kurdish militias holding off Islamist forces in Kobani.

“This place was like a war zone last night,” said Meric Onder, an archaeologist in the city reached via Facebook. “The police are trying to disperse the people on the street. There is violence and intensity everywhere.”

Schools were closed on Wednesday in Diyarbakir and flights into the city were canceled, the local media reported.

The Islamic State’s march on Kobani has inflamed Kurdish tensions throughout Turkey, raising fears that the peace process between the Turkish government and Kurdish insurgents inside Turkey may collapse. The PKK and the Turkish government have been involved in a three-decade conflict that has left tens of thousands dead.

Turkish authorities have urged calm, even as Syria’s more than three-year civil war continues to upend regional dynamics.

“Violence will not solve anything,” Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala told the state media. “Such senseless attitudes should come to an urgent stop.”