Türkİye

New family joins sit-in against PKK in SE Turkey

Sit-in protest began Sept. 3 last year in southeastern province of Diyarbakir against PKK's child abductions

Omer Yasin Ergin  | 16.09.2020 - Update : 16.09.2020
New family joins sit-in against PKK in SE Turkey

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey

A mother from Turkey's southern Adana province on Wednesday joined a year-long sit-in protest against the YPG/PKK terror group.

Hanife Akyuz claimed that her daughter, Sila, was kidnapped in 2014 when she was just 16.

Sila was kidnapped by the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) when they were in Istanbul to visit their relatives, she said.

Akyuz added that she went to the HDP office in the Beyoglu district and was told that her daughter was not there.

"I came to the [HDP's] Diyarbakir building, they didn't show me my daughter and said 'she doesn't want to see you.'"

The mother said she had made sacrifices for Sila to receive an education and have a career, but her daughter was taken to the mountains.

She had seen the protest earlier on television but could not join because she had a baby.

Akyuz will continue to take part in the sit-in until she is reunited with Sila, she said, calling on her daughter to come back.

The protest began on Sept. 3 last year in the city of Diyarbakir when Fevziye Cetinkaya, Remziye Akkoyun, and Aysegul Bicer said their children had been forcibly recruited by PKK terrorists.

Taking place outside the office of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which the government accuses of having links to the YPG/PKK, it has been growing day by day since then.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants. The YPG is PKK's Syrian offshoot.

* Writing by Gozde Bayar

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