PKK terrorists rob truck driver of sole source of income

By Ahmet Ozel

HATAY, Turkey (AA) – The truck driver was first stopped by PKK terrorists while driving his truck, loaded with minerals.

Then his truck was set ablaze and he found his body in flames.

The father of four children, truck driver Alihan Kilic hails from the Dortyol district of Turkey's southern Hatay province.

On Monday, Kilic -- while driving his truck from a mine in the eastern Mus province to a destination in Erzurum -- was stopped by PKK terrorists along the Karliova-Erzurum highway in the Herdo area.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Kilic, 55, recounted what happened that day.

"We had three trucks in total; I was driving one of them," he said. "We were near Karliova [district] when we found the terrorists blocking the road."

"At first I couldn't understand what was going on," he remembers. "They forced us out of the trucks before setting fire to them."

After two of his trucks had been torched, Kilic begged the attackers to spare the third.

"Leave at least one of them," he remembers saying.

But it was no use.

"After they burned the third truck, the terrorists came up to me," Kilic recalled. "They were talking on the phone in Kurdish."

"Since I myself am a Kurd, I could understand them. I heard one of them saying 'I will kill them'," he said. "But I think the man he was talking to [on the phone] told them to release us."

"Then one of the terrorists pushed me into the flames," Kilic said. "’Let your [Turkish] soldiers come,’ I remember him saying. ‘We are waiting for them’."

"Then the truck’s fuel tank exploded and my entire body was engulfed in flames," he recounted. "I ran desperately, trying to shield my face."

"I eventually emerged from the flames and found myself lying amid some bushes," Kilic said.

Shortly afterward, a truck driver found him and -- seeing the three trucks in flames -- rushed him to the nearby Karliova State Hospital.

After receiving medical treatment, Kilic was released from the hospital a few days later. He is now at home with his family recovering from the ordeal.

"Kurds will not do such a thing. These people [PKK terrorists] have nothing to do with humanity," he told Anadolu Agency.

He added: "They exploit Kurdish people for their own agenda."

As a result of the harrowing incident, Kilic has lost his sole means of making a living -- his three precious trucks, the bank loans for which he has yet to pay off.

The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization also by the U.S. and the EU -- resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015.

Since then, over 600 security personnel, including troops, police officers and village guards have been martyred and more than 7,000 PKK terrorists killed or neutralized in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.

* Sibel Ugurlu contributed to this report from Ankara.